Replay: Why Leonard Cohen Ran Toward War

Honestly with Bari Weiss

The Free Press

News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 7.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2023

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1973, Leonard Cohen announced he was done with music for good. The same year, in October, war broke out in Israel. The Yom Kippur War would become the bloodiest in Israel’s young history—and Cohen was there to witness it. As the war broke out, he left his home on the Greek island of Hydra to fly into the warzone. Leonard Cohen never said much about why he went to the front. What we know is that in the months that followed, he would write “Who By Fire.” Five decades later, on Spotify and in synagogue, you can still hear the echoes of this trip. So what was it that happened in the desert in October of 1973 between this depressed musician and these too young soldiers going off to battle? How did it remake Leonard Cohen? How did it transform those who heard him play? And how did the war transform Israel itself? Those are just some of the questions Matti Friedman explains in his beautiful book Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai. This episode aired last year on Honestly, and we’re thrilled to reshare it with you today, as we approach the 50 year anniversary of the war that remade a country—and one searching folk star. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's nothing like a single girl's summer. It's your time to prioritize whatever you want to do.
0:04.8	Say yes that every little adventure that presents itself watch the sunrise and the sunset.
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0:15.0	new cultures, and who knows, you might even find yourself a holiday romance and end up living
0:19.9	your real life mamamier dream.
0:22.1	I'm Barry Weiss and this is honestly. In a little
0:25.6	over a week Jews around the world will celebrate Yom Kippur, otherwise known as
0:29.8	the Day of Atonement. We pray, we confess our sins, we don't eat for 25 hours. It's a spiritual
0:36.8	cleansing of sorts and it's the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. But this year's
0:41.6	Yom Kippur also marks the 50th anniversary of the bloodiest war in Israel's history.
0:47.0	50 years ago, on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Israel was surprise attacked by Egypt in the south and Syria in the north.
0:56.6	A lot has been written about that horrific 19-day war that the Jewish state very nearly lost,
1:02.0	but none quite as surprising and meaningful as a book by the
1:05.4	award-winning author and journalist Mutti Friedman last year. The book is
1:09.5	called Who By Fire, Leonard Cohen in the Sinai?
1:13.6	Matty joined me on honestly last year
1:15.6	to share this unusual story,
1:17.6	and I'm thrilled to replay it for you today. Oh, you are really such a pretty little one.
1:27.0	I see you gone and change your name again.
1:34.2	Mati's book tells the previously untold story
1:37.6	about the unlikely meeting between the musician
1:39.9	Leonard Cohen and the young Israeli soldiers fighting an existential war in the desert, many of whom
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