Thought Leader: David B. Green

David B. Green was born in 1957 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is where he grew up. He attended college at the University of Chicago, and in 1980, after graduation, began working at The New Yorker magazine. He was there for seven years, most of that time working as a fact checker.

In 1987, he immigrated to Israel. He had grown up in a Zionist youth movement and spent his junior year of college in Israel, and at the time it seemed like a good idea. (There was also a woman involved.)

Green worked for 16 years at an independent, English-language newsmagazine called The Jerusalem Report. There he edited the arts and literature sections, wrote regularly, and ended up as deputy editor. During academic year 2001-2002, he was a Nieman journalism fellow at Harvard University.

After the Report ownership changed hands, Green went to work at Haaretz English Edition, which is published daily with the International Herald Tribune. Although most of the English Edition consists of translations from Haaretz, the country’s leading Hebrew newspaper, Green is responsible for two sections offering original material: a monthly book review and a weekly oped page.

Much of Green’s editing and writing has been in the fields of literature and the arts, which he finds a more telling way of gaining insight and understanding of Israeli society than straight news. In recent years, in addition, he has devoted significant time to writing about the nearly 20 percent of Israel’s citizens who are Palestinian Arabs. All of the political, philosophical and moral challenges faced by Israel find expression, he believes, in the relationship between the country’s Jewish majority and its Arab minority.

Israel is where he has chosen to spend his life, and he and his wife have raised two sons there. He feels that it is a country that receives a lot of international scrutiny, but one that is not at all easy to understand -- a combination of factors that is good for a journalist. And he still feels that he has a lot to write about.

David has written the essay, The Value of Truth Telling as part of the IVOH Voices & Values of Journalism Project - listen to and read the entire collection of essays here.

David's recent work and related links:

Interview with publisher Jonathan Galassi, Haaretz (February 2009)

Profile of writer Mary Gordon, Haaretz (February 2009)

Oped piece about the youth movement I grew up in, Haaretz (September 2008)

Q & A with Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide, Haaretz Books (March 2009)