Thought Leader: David B. Green

I, David B. Green, was born in 1957 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I also grew up. It was there, as a high school student, that I became involved in a socialist-Zionist youth movement called Hashomer Hatzair ("The Young Guard"), which educated its members to move to Israel and live on kibbutzim, the collective communities that had played a key role in building and defending the young state.

From the perspective of the youth movement, I was a failure: Although I did, many years later, move to Israel, it wasn't with the movement, and it wasn't to a kibbutz. Instead, I attended college in the U.S., receiving my B.A. from the University of Chicago, and then began working in journalism in New York, in 1980. My first job was with The New Yorker, where I started at the most entry-level position available, in the editorial morgue, writing summaries of everything that appeared in the weekly magazine, from four-part profiles to cartoons. That was followed by a lengthy stint as a fact checker, which was for me like attending journalism school, in terms of the skills and standards it taught me.

But the Israel bug remained with me, and in 1987, I decided to move to Jerusalem and give living there a try. (There was a woman involved -- today she's my wife.) I spent a few years writing grant proposals and promotional material for an NGO that raised money for educational, social and arts projects in the capital city, and in 1990 joined a new journalistic enterprise that was then being organized: a weekly English-language magazine called The Jerusalem Report, which was dedicated to covering "Israel, the Middle East, and the Jewish World" according to the highest professional standards.

I remained at the Report for nearly 16 years, and did most every job that could be done there. And the magazine, though it never became very well known internationally, did indeed have a reputation for the quality of its reporting and editing. By the time I left, I was the deputy editor and responsible for the arts and books coverage in the magazine, and a regular contributor. During a sabbatical, in 2001-2002, I was a Nieman journalism fellow at Harvard University.

My time in Israel has overlapped with two Gulf wars, two intifadas, several on-again, off-again peace processes. And I have written my fair share of pieces for foreign papers and magazines on these and other subjects, as well as for my primary employer. But my approach has more often than not been that of a cultural reporter, as I've looked at how literature and the arts can provide insight into this very, very complex society.

A special interest of mine has long been Israel's Arab minority -- Palestinian citizens of the state who have equal rights on paper, but in reality have second-class status. I feel that the very fragile position that these citizens -- I think of them as the "other Palestinians" -- who make up about 20 percent of the population, encompasses almost every one of the difficult challenges that faces Israel, in its attempt to be an enlightened democracy in the Middle East.

Two years ago, I joined the editorial staff of Haaretz newspaper, which publishes a daily English-language edition together with the International Herald Tribune. There I edit a monthly book review, a weekly page of original oped articles, and carry out a number of other editorial tasks.

Israel is apparently where I have chosen to spend my life, and my wife and I have raised two sons here. It is a country that receives a lot of international scrutiny, but one that is not at all easy to understand -- a combination of factors that is good for a journalist. And I still feel that I have a lot to write about.

David has written the essay, The Value of Truth Telling as part of the IVOH Voices & Values of Journalism Project - listen to and read the entire collection of essays here.

David's recent work and related links:

Interview with publisher Jonathan Galassi, Haaretz (February 2009)

Profile of writer Mary Gordon, Haaretz (February 2009)

Oped piece about the youth movement I grew up in, Haaretz (September 2008)

Q & A with Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide, Haaretz Books (March 2009)