Before our Israel trip, we were instructed to read an excerpt from Who By Fire by Matti Friedman, a book about Leonard Cohen’s impactful concert tour during the Yom Kippur War. Leonard Cohen was stuck in a mental block for music and decided to escape his own life to go to Israel, feeling a Jewish connection and understanding the war was a fateful moment for the Jewish people.
In an act of bravery, he put himself on the frontlines to inspire the soldiers with his music. The Israelis think of Cohen as an Israeli singer who sings in English.
Mattie’s goal when writing this book was to find stories of young scared soldiers during war, but after finding out about Cohen’s surprise visit he was so inspired he wanted to create a first hand vision of what the soldiers were experiencing. Overall, Friedman tells a story of the ails of the Yom Kippur War, and the complexity of Leonard Cohen’s musical career and how it united a nation in one of its darkest times.