Totally Booked with Zibby Matti Friedman Introduces Us to Heroes
Mar 26, 2026
Matti Friedman, an award-winning journalist and nonfiction author based in Jerusalem, discusses heroism and memory. He delves into a 1944 parachutist mission, archival sleuthing, travels across Europe, and how stories shaped Israeli public memory. Conversations touch on female parachutists, literary motivations for wartime deeds, and the naming of streets after these figures.
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Parachute Mission Was A Literary Act
- The 1944 British parachute mission was as much a literary act as a military one.
- Volunteers sought to rewrite Jews from victims into heroes, making narrative the central objective rather than tactical success.
Why Hero Worship Has Declined
- Modern culture often defaults to tearing down heroes, unlike the 1940s when societies accepted and needed heroic figures.
- Matti ties this shift to partisan polarization and moments like President Trump's critique of John McCain.
Retracing Parachutists By Train And Archive
- Matti chose four of the operation's 32 parachutists and reconstructed their stories from thousands of archival documents.
- He retraced routes in Hungary, Slovakia, Italy and used maps, memoirs, and train journeys to capture sensory detail.
