Bloom, Gadi

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Bloom, Gadi

PERSONAL:

Male.

CAREER:

Journalist, writer, and editor. Yedioth Communications, Israel, staff coordinator. Yedioth Tikshoret, Israel, managing editor.

WRITINGS:

(With Nir Hefez) Ha-Ro'eh: sipur hayav shel Ari'el Sharon (title means "The Shepherd: The Life Story of Ariel Sharon"), Yediot Aharonot: Sifre Hemed (Tel Aviv, Israel), 2005, translated by Mitch Ginsburg as Ariel Sharon: A Life, Random House (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Gadi Bloom and Nir Hefez are the authors of Ha-Ro'eh: sipur hayav shel Ari'el Sharon, which means "The Shepherd: The Life Story of Ariel Sharon." The book was translated from the Hebrew and published in the United States as Ariel Sharon: A Life. The authors trace the life of the controversial Israeli military commander and politician who became prime minister of Israel, serving in the post until he suffered a debilitating stroke in 2006. The book begins with an assassination attempt on Sharon's life and then goes back to recount Sharon's Russian-immigrant parents, isolated childhood, and his eventual powerful rise in Israeli politics. In a review in the Jerusalem Post, Tovah Lazaroff also pointed out: "The book chronicles his actions as the father of the settlement movement and his belief in their strategic importance. It charts the slow shift he made starting in the 1990s toward the more pragmatic political center, which culminated when he announced the disengagement from Gaza." A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the biography "an admiring, if critical, life of the Israeli warrior/politician." In a review in Booklist, Jay Freeman wrote that "this revealing and engrossing biography adds a great deal to our understanding of the man." Elizabeth R. Hayford, writing in the Library Journal, commented that the authors describe Sharon's life and career "as shaped by his physical bravery, resilience, unpredictability, willingness to challenge convention, and ability to change his positions."