Matti Friedman on Israel’s First Spies

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2019

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Long before the Mossad became known as one of the world’s greatest intelligence agencies; before the capture of Eichmann and the raid of Iran’s nuclear archive; before Eli Cohen and Rafi Eitan; before Fauda captured audiences around the world, Israel’s first spies were dispatched to Beirut without so much as a radio to contact home. In the spring on 1948, before the State of Israel had even been declared, a handful of young Mizrahi Jews were recruited to serve in the Palmach’s Arab Section and charged with going undercover among the Arab population of Palestine and neighboring countries. Sent back into the Arab lands they had left behind, these brave Jews risked their lives to become spies for a country that was yet to be born.

In Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, journalist and author Matti Friedman tells the story of these mista'aravim, Jews who went uncover as Arabs. Focusing on the lives of four of these men, Friedman transports us back to a world without a State of Israel or an IDF, where the fate of Palestine’s Jews remained uncertain and the project of Jewish statehood hung in the balance. This was the world of Israel’s first spies, the unsung heroes of the nation’s founding.

In this podcast, Matti Friedman joins Jonathan Silver to talk about his new book. They discuss the challenges and risks the spies faced while undercover, the complex identities of these Mizrahi Jews who had to pose as Arabs, and the importance of telling the stories of these Jewish heroes from Middle Eastern lands.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble as well as “Great Feeling” by Alex Kizenkov.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Long before the Mossad became known as one of the world's greatest intelligence agencies,
0:12.7	before the capture of Eichmann and the raid on Iran's nuclear archive, before Elie Cohen
0:18.7	and Rafi Eitan, before Fauda, captured the imagination of audiences around
0:23.7	the world. Israel's first spies were dispatched to Beirut without so much as a radio to contact home.
0:30.9	In the spring of 1948, before the state of Israel had even been declared, a handful of young Jews
0:36.7	from Arab lands were recruited to serve
0:39.9	in the Palmax Arab section. Their missions required that they go undercover and live among the
0:46.3	Arab populations of mandate Palestine and neighboring countries. Serving the proto-state of Israel,
0:52.7	they were sent back into the Arab lands they had left behind.
0:56.3	In today's conversation with Mati Friedman, we discuss his new book, Spies of No Country, Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel,
1:03.6	and the stories it tells of Jewish courage exhibited by very young men who risked their lives
1:09.7	to become spies for a country that was yet to be born.
1:12.6	Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. This week we celebrate Israel's
1:18.6	71st year of independence by returning to a world without a state of Israel, or an IDF,
1:24.6	where the fate of Palestine's Jews remained precarious, and the enterprise of Jewish sovereignty
1:29.4	uncertain. We'll discuss what we can learn about Jewish power and the Jewish return to history,
1:34.4	and we'll discuss what these young men and the millions of Israelis like them can help us learn
1:39.6	about the identities of Israel then and now. If you enjoy this week's show, you can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play,
1:46.7	and Spotify, and I hope you'll leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of
1:51.6	ideas.
1:52.8	We'd love to hear your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes, and we welcome
1:57.6	your email at podcast at tikfa fund.org.
	...

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