Joshua Hammer\’s book is called \”Chosen by God: A Brother\’s Journey\” (Hyperion Press), and while the titular journey refers to his brother, it may very well apply to Hammer himself.
A rush of stories in the press this week about the past. First, innocuously enough, music.
The sound of a guitar playing and children singing drifts out past the hotel pool. \”Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh,\” they sing, \”Holy, holy, holy unto me.\”
Los Angeles, as always, attracted a variety of interesting visitors in recent days. The Jewish Journal couldn\’t meet all of them, but we made contact with a group of German journalists and government officials, the former executive editor of The New York Times, and the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.
It was 1984. A tough, tight-lipped Israeli army colonel was leading a small group of journalists on a tour of southern Lebanon, where Israel was in the midst of a war. The journalists wore army-issue flak jackets. They listened and took notes, as if taking dictation. One correspondent, Thomas L. Friedman, challenged the officer repeatedly. The colonel stonewalled him. But Friedman\’s questions were sharp and unrelenting. \”He\’s going to end up wanting to talk to me,\” Friedman said to a Reuters reporter, \”because tomorrow whatever he says is going to be on the front page of The New York f—— Times.\”
Some of you may have caught last week\’s New Yorker (May 25) with journalist David Remnick\’s profile of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. If not, I urge you to call the magazine\’s offices in New York and order a back copy, or simply visit your local library.
\nRetired Maj. Gen. Oren Shachor, former Israel Defense Forces chiefintelligence officer, held a field briefing for his subordinateofficers and field operatives last week at Cava restaurant on westThird Street.\n\nActually, it was just an interview with a Jewish journalist.
More than a century ago, Theodor Herzl was a prominent Europeanjournalist who lived in Vienna and was essentially a Jewish assimilationist. He wasn\’t much concerned about Jewish life or identity. As an intellectual, he considered himself a citizen of Europe.\n\nThen came the assignment that would change his life, and world Jewry, forever.
Linda Deutsch and Theo Wilson liveda cross the street from each other for most of the past 21 years. They were trial reporters who met in the Charles Manson courtroom, competitors and best friends. On Jan. 17, Wilson called Deutsch four times while anxiously awaiting the limo that was to take her from her Hollywood Hills home to a CBS interview — the official start ofpromotion for her new book, \”Headline Justice,\” which had taken her 10 years to complete.
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