Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier's Story of a Forgotten War

"I should say, Matti Friedman and I are friends. Pumpkinflowers is about his experience serving in the Israeli army at an outpost in a buffer zone on the Southern Lebanon border during the late 1990s. His unit was there to defend northern communities from Hezbollah fighters who were shooting missiles into Israel. It’s an astonishing memoir. Hanukkah is, in a way, a military holiday. So I wanted to include Pumpkinflowers because it’s about what goes on in the mind of a Jewish soldier at war. It’s a contemporary perspective on what it’s like for an Israeli soldier to face an openly jihadi enemy on his border, where moments of boredom alternate with moments of total terror. And Matti Friedman is a wonderful writer."