Matti Friedman’s 2016 book Pumpkinflowers was chosen as a
New York Times Notable Book and as one of Amazon’s 10 Best Books of
the Year. It was selected as one of the year’s best by Booklist,
Mother Jones, Foreign Affairs, the National Post, and the Globe and
Mail. His first book, The Aleppo Codex, won the 2014 Sami Rohr
Prize, the ALA’s Sophie Brody Medal, and the Canadian Jewish Book
Award for history. A former AssociatedPress correspondent, Friedman
has reported from Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus,
and Washington, DC, and his writing has appeared in
the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the
Atlantic, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. Friedman
grew up in Toronto and now lives with his family in Jerusalem.
2019 National Jewish Book Awards finalist
“Wondrous . . . compelling . . . In unadorned yet piercing prose,
Friedman captures what it was like to be part of the Arab Section .
. . Friedman succeeds in portraying the ‘stories beneath the
stories’ that acted as a bedrock to the rise of the Mossad and
serve still as a window into Israel’s troubled soul.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Spies of No Country is an important book . . . Americans are not
accustomed to hearing about Israel's complexity, or its diversity.
We are rarely asked to consider Israel as a country that is, as
Friedman says, 'more than one thing.' Any serious defender or
critic of Israeli politics should consider this a serious problem.
Meaningful opinions require nuanced understanding, and Spies of No
Country offers that.”
—NPR Books
“In Spies of No Country, Matti Friedman, a Canadian-Israeli
journalist, resurrects early operations of the intelligence service
of the Palmach, the nascent military that ultimately grew into the
mighty Israel Defense Forces. The book is a slim but intriguing
string of anecdotes in which members of the unit risk their lives
under cover in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq as Jewish settlers and
refugees fought to preserve their foothold in Palestine.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Engaging . . . Illuminating . . . Friedman seems to be telling
this story for larger purposes. He wants to shine a light on a band
of Arab-born operatives often overlooked in the stories of Israel’s
founding as a Holocaust refuge led by Europeans in the Zionist
movement. When I was done, I couldn’t stop thinking about the
men inside the Beirut kiosk, selling candy and pencils to
schoolchildren while secretly listening to a transistor radio
tucked in the back, trying to pick up news from home.”
—The Washington Post
“One of the most compelling, compulsively readable histories I've
read in a long while. Matti Friedman is a lyrical writer and a
master of suspenseful storytelling. His gripping spy story doesn’t
just narrate Israel’s heroic founding—it illuminates its tortured
present.”
—Franklin Foer, author of World Without Mind
“Spies of No Country is thrilling, moving, and, like
everything that Matti Friedman writes, deeply humane.”
—Nicole Krauss, author of Forest Dark
"A thrilling Israeli spy story . . . Matti Friedman tells this
story with great style. Not only is Spies of No Country good on
such sophisticated, tangled questions of identity; it also just
tells a fun story. As a literary document, Spies of No Country is
exquisite . . . beautiful and exciting.”
—The Forward
“Matti Friedman’s Spies of No Country is a compelling tale of
Israeli espionage. But more than that, it is a meditation on
Israel’s national origin story . . . compelling . . . like the best
le Carré . . . Friedman’s superb storytelling skills are such that
he employs the devices of fiction, most notably the use of dramatic
irony, which gives the narrative a particular poignancy.”
—The American Interest
“Matti Friedman’s enthralling new book, Spies of No Country, tells
the story of a Palmach unit called the Arab Section. The Palmach
was the underground Jewish army that fought in British
Palestine.”
—Commentary Magazine
“On the surface, it’s an engaging spy saga. Beneath that, though,
lies an examination of identity and the humanity behind both sides
of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. Ultimately, Gamliel, Isaac,
Havakuk, and Yakuba were unknown until now because they were not
caught and thus escaped greater renown. Matti Friedman does us, his
readers, a great service not just in bringing their exploits to
light, but in sharing with us insights into how they impacted
history and the region.”
—Washington Independent Review of Books
“Excellent . . . compelling . . . [the spies’] stories are an
unjustly forgotten—and fascinating—aspect of Israel’s founding.
[Friedman’s] deeply researched book is not only enjoyable but
groundbreaking.”
—Jewish Review of Books
“A noteworthy and authentic spy story. Spies of No Country tells
the story of the birth of the State of Israel in 1948 through the
accounts of a small group of Jewish heroes, the Arab Section, who
spied for the new state in surrounding Arab countries . . . filled
with riveting vignettes. This is rather a splendid retelling of one
small part of the effort to create a Jewish homeland. Friedman’s
account of the Arab Section is an eye-opening narrative of the
early days of the State of Israel. It is not an optimistic story,
but a genuine and sorrowful one.”
—The New York Journal of Books
“Spies of No Country, the third book by the Israeli journalist,
shares the gripping and previously untold stories of four Mizrahi
Jews who took part in a spy unit called the Arab Section.
Friedman’s approach to this often untold history of Israel is a
refreshing one – and has been taboo for many writers. The rich
history of Eastern Jews, including the critical role they played in
establishing the State of Israel, should not be minimized or erased
by the superficial biases of Western scholars. Thankfully,
Friedman’s groundbreaking book provides a vital example of how to
avoid just that.”
—Jerusalem Post
“We learn more about what a real-life espionage agent actually does
in Spies of No Country than in any mere thriller . . . so exotic
that it sounds like something out of the imagination of Ian
Fleming. Friedman’s book is animated by his conviction that respect
must be paid to these overlooked heroes. Thus does Friedman rectify
a moral and historical wrong when he calls our attention to the
four young men whom we come to know so well and admire so much in
the pages of Spies of No Country.”
—Jewish Journal (Los Angeles)
“Matti Friedman’s Spies of No Country tells the story of four men
who became members of the Arab Section and went undercover in
Beirut for two years. Readers who know Friedman from his previous
books, Pumpkinflowers and The Aleppo Codex, will already appreciate
Friedman’s talent in creating dramatic nonfiction. A spy story
inherently involves situations that complicate the life of the main
character. Friedman enhances his story by defining how his
character perceives the situations he encounters, but also how he,
the writer, perceives the character perceiving the situation.”
—Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston)
“Refreshing . . . Friedman’s book exposes the complex reality of
these loyal Israelis who were challenged, exoticized and vilified
again and again by Ashkenazi Jews. The rich history of Eastern
Jews, including the critical role they played in establishing the
State of Israel, should not be minimized or erased by the
superficial biases of Western scholars. Thankfully, Friedman’s
groundbreaking book provides a vital example of how to avoid just
that.”
—Jewish Star
“Sometimes we read books that fill in details about a particular
moment in the history we care deeply about, and we learn so much.
Matti Friedman has written such a book about the Jewish spies who
spoke Arabic as their native language because they had grown up in
places like Syria, Yemen and Jerusalem during the British mandate
before Israel became an embattled state in May 1948. Friedman’s
reporting on this moment in the formative time in Israeli history
is helpful today as we watch events unfold that give hope for
better relations between Israeli Jews and their Arab
neighbors.”
—St. Louis Jewish Light
“Veiling their Jewishness, the spies of the ‘Arab Section’ were
present at the creation of Israel. Matti Friedman tells their
little-known story. Friedman is a skilled storyteller with an
eye for detail, and grounded in facts.”
—The New York Jewish Week
“Remarkable . . . a fascinating account . . . a wealth of
information and various tidbits that make it so worthwhile to read.
With so much anti-Israel bias currently going on, this book serves
as a truthful and unbiased account of the founding of the State of
Israel. I would definitely recommend Spies of No Country to anybody
who wants to learn more about Israel and Zionism in general.”
—Manhattan Book Review
“In his new book, Spies of No Country, Friedman, who is now based
in Jerusalem, combines his in-depth knowledge of Israel with a
riveting narrative to recount the story of the Arab Section, an
Israeli spy operation active from January 1948 to August 1949.
Based on both interviews and archives, Friedman drops readers into
the complex, shifting and dangerous landscape of the 1948 conflict.
Spies of No Country is a fascinating journey into the past that
reads like a spy novel—except in this case, it’s all true.”
—BookPage
“Friedman tells the fascinating story of the Arab Section . . . At
that time, Israel was many things, and the author deftly navigates
the complicated identities and the stories beneath the stories. An
exciting historical journey and highly informative look at the
Middle East with Israel as the starting point.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“In evocative prose detailing mid-20th-century life in the
dangerous streets of Haifa and Beirut, journalist Friedman recounts
the intertwined stories of four underground spies for the Arab
Section of the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization in
Palestine that became part of the Israel Defence Forces after
Israel’s founding.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[An] absolutely arresting account of espionage at the genesis of
the Israeli state.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“At that time, Israel was many things, and the author deftly
navigates the complicated identities and the stories beneath the
stories . . . An exciting historical journey and highly informative
look at the Middle East with Israel as the starting point.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"A fine, moving piece of writing, told with simplicity and
artistry."
—Benny Morris, author of 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli
War
“This book sure looks like a rollicking spy story. It’s got all the
necessary parts: a high-stakes war for a new state’s existence,
double identities, suspense, betrayal. But it’s more than that.
This is a book about being an outsider many times over. The four
spies in Spies of No Country grew up as Jews in Arab lands; came of
age in British Palestine as dark-skinned Middle Easteners looked
down on by their European counterparts; lived undercover as Arabs
in hostile territory; and were never publicly acknowledged in
Israel as the heroes they were. Justice demanded that their stories
be told. We’re lucky that a writer as gifted as Matti Friedman came
along to tell them.”
—Judith Shulevitz, New York Times op-ed contributor and author of
The Sabbath World
“Matti Friedman shows us how an heroic little band of Jewish spies
from Arab countries helps explain the political and cultural
transformation of Israel from its European Jewish origins into the
largely Middle Eastern country it is today. With Spies of No
Country, Matti Friedman proves that he is one of the essential
interpreters of Israel writing today.”
—Yossi Klein Halevi, New York Times bestselling author of Letters
to My Palestinian Neighbor
Ask a Question About this Product More... |