Matti Friedman
In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen - 39 years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end - traveled to the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert when Egypt attacked Israel on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur. Moving around the front with a guitar and a group of local musicians, Cohen met hundreds of young soldiers, men and women at the worst moment of their lives. Those who survived never forgot the experience. And the war transformed Cohen. He had announced that he was abandoning his music career, but his experience in the Sinai inspired one of his most successful songs, and after the war he released one of his best albums and returned to the stage.
This book was a 2022 Christmas present along with Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools. Abbey got it for me on a whim because she figured Leonard Cohen was kind of my generation. I probably wouldn’t have picked it out of a lineup, but it ended up being an interesting read about a piece of history that I really wasn’t all that aware of. And reading it in the middle of the current conflict added significance. If you’re any kind of fan of Cohen or Israel, you could do a lot worse than to pick this up and read it.
First Line: Some of the men on the sand look up at the visitor with his guitar.
Page 56 / Line 5: I said, “Are you kidding?”
Last Line: He blessed the people and left the stage.
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