Goodman, Hirsh 1946–

PERSONAL: Born 1946, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa; emigrated to Israel, 1965; married; children: four.

ADDRESSES: Home—Tel Aviv, Israel. Office—Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, P.O. Box 39040, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem, Israel, 1971–2000, began as a reporter, became vice president; Jerusalem Report, Jerusalem, founding editor-in-chief, 1990–98; Washington Institution on Near East Policy, Washington, DC, strategic fellow; Tel Aviv University, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv, Israel, senior research associate, director of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Program on Information Strategy, 2000–. Military service: Israeli Army; served as paratrooper.

WRITINGS:

(With W. Seth Cams) The Future Battlefield and the Arab-Israeli Conflict ("Near East Policy" series), Transactions Publishers (New Brunswick, NJ), 1990.

(Editor, with Jonathan Cummings) The Battle of Jenin: A Case Study in Israel's Communications Strategy ("JCSS Memorandum" series), Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University (Tel Aviv, Israel), 2003.

Let Me Create a Paradise, God Said to Himself: A Journey of Conscience from Johannesburg to Jerusalem (memoir), Public Affairs Press (New York, NY), 2005, published as Let Me Create a Paradise: A Journey of Conscience from Johannesburg to Jerusalem, HarperCollins (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2005.

Also author of a history of the Israeli navy. Contributing editor to U.S. News & World Report; contributor to the New Republic and CBS News.

SIDELIGHTS: Hirsh Goodman was born in apartheid South Africa, where his growing awareness of the racism and anti-Semitism in that country, and his passion for Zionism, led him to Israel, where he joined the military as a paratrooper. After serving in the 1967 war, Goodman became a journalist, beginning as a military reporter for the Jerusalem Post. Goodman's Let Me Create a Paradise, God Said to Himself: A Journey of Conscience from Johannesburg to Jerusalem is a memoir in which he recounts his life in both countries and his changing views regarding the conflict in the Middle East. Rebecca Brown wrote in Rebecca Reads online that this memoir is "packed with vibrant memories of youthful bliss, immigrant confusion, war, politics, philosophies and love, offering a unique, mature and articulate inside look into this passionate region." A Publishers Weekly contributor concluded that Goodman offers "unsentimental insight into the trajectory many have made from Zionist passion to pain, from naivete to realism."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Goodman, Hirsh, Let Me Create a Paradise, God Said to Himself: A Journey of Conscience from Johannesburg to Jerusalem, Public Affairs Press (New York, NY), 2005.

PERIODICALS

Publishers Weekly, February 21, 2005, review of Let Me Create a Paradise, God Said to Himself, p. 171.

ONLINE

Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies Web site, http://www.tau.ac.il/ (February 23, 2006), brief biography of Hirsh Goodman.

National Public Radio, http://www.npr.org/ (September 7, 2003), Lian Hansen, "Interview: Hirsh Goodman, Senior Fellow at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, and Rami Khouri, Editor of the Daily Star, Discuss the Future of the Peace Process for the Middle East."

Rebecca Reads, http://rebeccareads.com/ (February 23, 2006), Rebecca Brown, review of Let Me Create a Paradise, God Said to Himself.