A Conversation with Jonathan Freedland

Jonathan Freedland is an award winning journalist, broadcaster, presenter and author. He’s a weekly columnist for the Guardian, presenter of BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series ‘The Long View’ and of two podcasts: the ‘Guardian's Politics Weekly America’ and ‘Unholy’, alongside the Israeli journalist Yonit Levi.

He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Save the World and The Traitors Circle: The Rebels Against the Nazis and the Spy Who Betrayed Them. He was in Australia as a guest of NIF Australia and TJI and I joined him for two of his events.

We spoke about his work and experiences as a journalist, his views on the long running conflict between Palestine and Israel, the way other historical religious wars evolved (and how long they ran for) and he shared things he’d learned and heard after interviewing so many people from both Palestine and Israel.

He also spoke about Iran (the war had just begun during that week he was in Australia), the future of Democracy in Israel, identity and belonging, antisemitism and antizionism.

He is a person, and a professional, who is able to hold different perspectives, different pains, & different hopes in his mind at the same time. He brought depth, clarity, rationality and hope to these conversations and to the people who gathered to hear him