IDF soldiers close gate to Lebanon at end of withdrawal in May 2000
IDF soldiers close gate to Lebanon at end of withdrawal in May 2000Reuters

Shmuel Rosner and Matti Friedman discuss Matti’s new book, “Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War,” Israel’s war in Lebanon and why it has not received its place in the Israeli canon.

Matti Friedman’s work as a reporter has taken him from Lebanon to Morocco, Cairo, Moscow and Washington, D.C., and to conflicts in Israel and the Caucasus.

He has been a correspondent for the Associated Press, and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. He grew up in Toronto and lives in Jerusalem. “The Aleppo Codex,” his first book (Algonquin, 2012) won the 2014 Sami Rohr Prize and the ALA’s Sophie Brody Medal, among other honors. His second book, “Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story” (Algonquin, May 2016) won starred reviews in Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, and was compared by the New York Times to Tim O’Brien’s masterpiece “The Things They Carried.”