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Nathan Thrall

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Nathan Thrall
Alma mater
OccupationWriter
Websitenathanthrall.com

Nathan Thrall is an American author, essayist, and journalist based in Jerusalem. Thrall is known for his 2023 nonfiction work A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, and is a contributor to several literary magazines. As of 2023 he is a professor at Bard College in New York state.

Thrall is the former director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the International Crisis Group, where from 2010 until 2020 he covered Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel's relations with its neighbors.

Early life and education

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Thrall is Jewish, and his mother is a Jewish émigrée from the Soviet Union.[1]

Thrall received a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara's College of Creative Studies and an M.A. in politics from Columbia University.[2]

Career

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Thrall was a member of the editorial staff of The New York Review of Books, before being hired at the International Crisis Group by Robert Malley.[2] At the start of his tenure at the International Crisis Group, Thrall lived in Gaza.[3] He was director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the group, where from 2010 to 2020 he covered Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel's relations with its neighbors.[4]

As of 2021 he is a contributor to The New York Times Magazine,[5] the London Review of Books,[6] and The New York Review of Books.[7]

As of November 2023 Thrall is a professor at Bard College, a private liberal arts college in Red Hook. [8]

Books

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The Only Language They Understand

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Thrall's first published book was an essay collection, The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 2017; Picador, 2018). It received positive reviews in The New York Times,[9] Foreign Affairs,[10] Time,[11] and The New York Review of Books.[12] The Jewish Book Council's Bob Goldfarb wrote that his book, The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine, "brings unparalleled clarity to the dynamics of Israeli-Palestinian relations, and is an essential guide to the history, personalities, and ideas behind the conflict."[13] Mosaic selected the book as one of the best of the year, writing, "A knowledgeable and bold retelling of the Israel-Palestinian conflict that forces readers to take a serious and fresh look at their assumptions. Throughout its counterintuitive retelling of this history, it offers an unusually provocative and sometimes startling contribution to the genre."[14]

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

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A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy (2023) is a work of non-fiction that tells the story of interwoven lives of several Palestinian inhabitants of a part of Jerusalem occupied by Israel, centred around a man called Abed Salama. It was named a best book of 2023 by over ten publications, including The New Yorker,[15] The Economist,[16] Time,[17] The Financial Times,[18] The New Republic,[19] The Millions,[20] Mother Jones,[21] The Forward,[22] Booklist,[23] The New Statesman,[24] and The Irish Times,[25] and was selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.[26] The Financial Times named it a best book of 2023 in two categories, Literary Nonfiction[18] and Politics,[27] stating, "This quietly heartbreaking work of non-fiction reads like a novel. At its centre is a tragic road accident outside Jerusalem in the West Bank from which Thrall, a Jewish American journalist, carefully traces the labyrinthine lives of those involved and the tangled web of politics, history and culture that ensnare them all."[18]

This book also won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction[28] and was shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Writing.[29]

Journalism

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"The Separate Regimes Delusion"

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In January 2021, the London Review of Books published Thrall's article, "The Separate Regimes Delusion," which argued, "The premise that Israel is a democracy, maintained by Peace Now, Meretz, the editorial board of Haaretz and other critics of occupation, rests on the belief that one can separate the pre-1967 state from the rest of the territory under its control. A conceptual wall must be maintained between two regimes: (good) democratic Israel and its (bad) provisional occupation."[30] Thrall's article was praised in Haaretz by Gideon Levy, who wrote, "the American writer Nathan Thrall, who lives in Jerusalem, published an eye-opening and mind-expanding piece in The London Review of Books .... Thrall doesn't hesitate to criticize the supposedly liberal-Zionist and leftist organizations, from Meretz and Peace Now to Yesh Din and Haaretz. All of them believe that Israel is a democracy and oppose annexation because it could undermine their false belief that the occupation is happening somewhere else, outside of Israel, and is only temporary."[31]

"A Day in the Life of Abed Salama"

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In March 2021, The New York Review of Books published Thrall's piece, "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: One man's quest to find his son lays bare the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli rule,"[32] together with an animated trailer.[33] The article was covered in The Washington Post,[34] Foreign Policy,[35] The American Prospect,[36] Jewish Currents,[37] European publications,[38][39] the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,[40] a podcast episode hosted by New York Times columnist Peter Beinart,[41] and a two-part, forty-minute segment on Democracy Now![42][43] Longreads called it "an astonishing feat of reporting" and named it a Best Feature of 2021.[44][45][46]

Thrall went on to write a non-fiction book based on the article, completing the work with the help of New York Bard College, which awarded Thrall a writing fellowship. The college invited him to teach a course and Thrall proposed one on Israeli apartheid which he gave for Spring 2023.[47][48] A Day in the Life of Abed Salama-Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy was published on October 3, 2023 by Metropolitan Books.

Bibliography

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Books

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  • Thrall, Nathan (2023). A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy.[49] New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Company. Hardcover ISBN 9781250854971. ebook ISBN 9781250854988.
  • Thrall, Nathan (2017). The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 978-1627797092.

Book chapters

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  • "Can Hamas be part of the solution?," in Jamie Stern-Weiner ed., Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel–Palestine's Toughest Questions. New York, New York: OR Books, 2018.[50]

References

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  1. ^ Rachel Cooke (October 15, 2023). "'It's lonely being a Jewish critic of Israel' – Nathan Thrall on his book about a Palestinian father's tragedy". The Guardian.
  2. ^ a b Seaton, Matt; Thrall, Nathan. "The Endless Occupation, a New Understanding". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  3. ^ Thrall, Nathan (May 16, 2017). The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-1-62779-710-8.
  4. ^ "Nathan Thrall". Crisis Group. July 14, 2016. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  5. ^ Thrall, Nathan (March 28, 2019). "How the Battle Over Israel and Anti-Semitism Is Fracturing American Politics". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  6. ^ Thrall, Nathan. "Nathan Thrall · LRB". London Review of Books. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  7. ^ "Nathan Thrall". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  8. ^ McGreal, Chris (November 8, 2023). "Israeli diplomat pressured US college to drop course on 'apartheid' debate". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved January 26, 2024.
  9. ^ Beckerman, Gal (May 22, 2017). "50 Years On, Stories of the Six Day War and What Came After". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  10. ^ Koplow, Michael J. (August 14, 2019). "Language Lessons". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  11. ^ "Is Force the Solution to Peace in the Middle East?". Time. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  12. ^ Shulman, David. "Israel's Irrational Rationality". New York Review of Books. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  13. ^ "The Only Language They Understand | Jewish Book Council". 2017.
  14. ^ "The Best Books of 2018, Chosen by Mosaic Authors » Mosaic". Mosaic. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  15. ^ "The Best Books of 2023". The New Yorker. January 25, 2023. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  16. ^ "The best books of 2023, as chosen by The Economist". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  17. ^ "The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023". TIME. December 7, 2023. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  18. ^ a b c "Best books of 2023 — Literary non-fiction". www.ft.com. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  19. ^ Republic, The New; Marsh, Laura; Marsh, Laura; Alam, Rumaan; Alam, Rumaan; Nwanevu, Osita; Nwanevu, Osita; Kindley, Evan; Kindley, Evan (December 18, 2023). "The New Republic's Books of the Year". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  20. ^ Schwartz, Madeleine (December 19, 2023). "A Year in Reading: Madeleine Schwartz". The Millions. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  21. ^ Jones, Mother. "The 29 books we couldn't stop thinking about in 2023". Mother Jones. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  22. ^ Connelly, Irene Katz (December 18, 2023). "The best Jewish books of 2023". The Forward. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  23. ^ Booklist Editors' Choice: Adult Books, 2023, by | Booklist Online.
  24. ^ Statesman, New (November 24, 2023). "Books of the year 2023". New Statesman. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  25. ^ "The best books of 2023: Writers and critics choose". The Irish Times. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  26. ^ "9 New Books We Recommend This Week". The New York Times. November 30, 2023. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  27. ^ "Best books of 2023 — Politics". www.ft.com. Retrieved December 24, 2023.
  28. ^ "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, by Nathan Thrall (Metropolitan Books)". pulitzer.org. Retrieved May 6, 2024.
  29. ^ "Orwell Prizes 2024 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. June 11, 2024. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  30. ^ Thrall, Nathan (January 21, 2021). "The Separate Regimes Delusion". London Review of Books. Vol. 43, no. 2. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  31. ^ Levy, Gideon (January 17, 2021). "Not 'Apartheid in the West Bank.' Apartheid". Haaretz. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  32. ^ Thrall, Nathan. "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  33. ^ The New York Review of Books (March 18, 2021). "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama [video]". Vimeo.
  34. ^ "Analysis | As Israel votes again, Palestinians still wait their turn". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  35. ^ Walt, Stephen M. (May 27, 2021). "It's Time to End the 'Special Relationship' With Israel". Foreign Policy. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  36. ^ Alterman, Eric (April 2, 2021). "Altercation: An Anti-Semite Who's Anything But". The American Prospect. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  37. ^ "Shabbat Reading List". Jewish Currents. March 19, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  38. ^ Schipper, Jannie (April 27, 2021). "'Apartheidsstaat Israël stevent af op compleet succes voor de kolonisten'". NRC (in Dutch). Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  39. ^ "" Pourquoi maintenant ? " : sur les origines de la guerre des onze jours". Le Grand Continent (in French). May 29, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  40. ^ "J Street Conference Marks 'A New Day in Washington' for U.S.-Israel Relations". Haaretz. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  41. ^ ""Occupied Thoughts": Nathan Thrall, Peter Beinart, and "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama"". Foundation for Middle East Peace. March 31, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  42. ^ "Nathan Thrall on the Historic Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Control from the River to the Sea". Democracy Now!. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  43. ^ "Nathan Thrall on "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama" & Reality of Palestinian Life Under Israeli Rule". Democracy Now!. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  44. ^ "What Happened to Milad? A Palestinian Father Searches for His Son". Longreads. May 24, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  45. ^ "The Top 5 Longreads of the Week". Longreads. May 21, 2021. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
  46. ^ "Best of 2021: Features". Longreads. December 16, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
  47. ^ McGreal, Chris (November 8, 2023). "Israeli diplomat pressured US college to drop course on 'apartheid' debate" – via The Guardian.
  48. ^ "Coursicle – Chat with classmates". www.coursicle.com.
  49. ^ Thrall, Nathan (2023). A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. New York, NY: Metropolitan/Henry Holt. ISBN 9781250854971.
  50. ^ "Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel–Palestine's Toughest Questions − Edited by Jamie Stern-Weiner". OR Books. February 20, 2018. Retrieved October 23, 2021.
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