The Match That Lit the Flame: Hannah Senesh and the Creation of Modern Israel (with Matti Friedman)

In Out of the Sky, Matti Friedman tells the story of the Zionist paratroopers sent from Palestine into Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944, situating their failed missions within the broader project of Zionist storytelling. Friedman blends deep archival research and personal narrative to recover the real, complicated people behind national myths—most famously Hannah Senesh—and to explore why the Zionist movement crafted these acts as exemplars of Jewish heroism. The book interrogates the uneasy relationship between myth and history, showing how symbolic narratives can both inspire and flatten human lives. Friedman also connects the 1944 missions to contemporary Israeli identity and ongoing cycles of sacrifice and militarism. His work asks what is gained and what is lost when historical actors are transformed into symbols.

In this nonfiction essay collection, Dara Horn examines why society is more fascinated with the death of Jews than with the lives of living Jews. She weaves together history, social science, and personal stories to critique the public's obsession with Jewish history, particularly the Holocaust, and how this obsession can be a profound affront to human dignity. Horn discusses various topics such as the veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology surrounding Jewish family names at Ellis Island, and the life of Varian Fry, a 'Righteous Among the Nations. ' She also reflects on her own family life and the impact of antisemitism on her children's school experiences. The book argues that the reverence for past Jewish tragedies does not translate into respect for contemporary Jewish life and that this disparity contributes to the ongoing rise of antisemitism.

Pumpkinflowers recounts the harrowing experiences of a band of young Israeli soldiers charged with holding a remote outpost in Lebanon called Pumpkin Hill. The book is part memoir, part reportage, and part history, capturing the birth of today’s chaotic Middle East and the rise of a twenty-first-century type of war. It foreshadows the unwinnable conflicts the United States would soon confront in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Friedman’s narrative explores the psychological and physical toll of war on the soldiers and the broader implications for Israel and the world.