Jonathan Freedland

Jonathan Saul Freedland (born 25 February 1967)[1] is a British journalist, who writes a weekly column for The Guardian. He presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series The Long View. Freedland also writes thrillers, mainly under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.

Jonathan Freedland
Jonathan Freedland in 2013
Born (1967-02-25) 25 February 1967[1]
Other namesSam Bourne
Alma materWadham College, Oxford
OccupationJournalist
Spouse(s)Sarah Peters[1]
Websitejonathanfreedland.com
twitter.com/freedland
guardian.co.uk/profile/jonathanfreedland

Early life

The youngest of three children and the only son of a Jewish couple, biographer and journalist Michael Freedland, and Israeli-born Sara Hocherman,[2] he was educated at University College School, a boys' independent school in Hampstead, London. As a child, Freedland periodically accompanied his father for broadcasting work. On one occasion, his father was interviewing Eric Morecambe, who comically assumed the 10 year-old Freedland was married.[3] After a gap year working on a kibbutz in Israel with the Labour Zionist Habonim Dror (where Freedland had been a mentor to Sacha Baron Cohen[4]), he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Wadham College, Oxford. While at Oxford, he was editor of Cherwell, the student newspaper.

Journalism

Freedland began his Fleet Street career at the short-lived Sunday Correspondent. In 1990 he joined the BBC as a news reporter across radio and television, including for The World at One and Today on Radio 4. In 1992, he was awarded the Laurence Stern fellowship[5] on The Washington Post, serving as a staff writer on national news. He was Washington Correspondent for The Guardian from 1993 until 1997, when he returned to London as an editorial writer and columnist.

Between 2002 and 2004, Freedland was an occasional columnist for the Daily Mirror and from 2005 to 2007 he wrote a weekly column for the London Evening Standard. He writes a monthly column for The Jewish Chronicle. He has also been published in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Newsweek and The New Republic.

Freedland was named 'Columnist of the Year' in the 2002 What the Papers Say awards and in 2008 was awarded the David Watt Prize for Journalism,[6] in recognition of his essay "Bush's Amazing Achievement", published in The New York Review of Books.[7] Nominated on seven occasions, Freedland was awarded a special Orwell Prize in May 2014 for his journalism.[8][9] In 2016, he won the "Commentariat of the Year" prize at the Comment Awards.[10]

Freedland was executive editor of the opinion section of The Guardian from May 2014 till early 2016 and continues to write a Saturday column for it.[11][12]

In November 2019, Freedland apologised for making a "very bad error" in falsely reporting that a shortlisted Labour Prospective parliamentary candidate had been fined for making antisemitic remarks on Facebook. He attributed the mistaken identification by confusing two lawyers with the same name to a "previously reliable Labour source" whose information he had "passed on too hastily".[13][14]

Author

Freedland has published ten books: two non-fiction works under his own name and eight novels, seven of them under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.

Bring Home the Revolution: The case for a British Republic (1998), Freedland's first book, argued that Britain should reclaim the revolutionary ideals it exported to America in the 18th century, and undergo a constitutional and cultural overhaul. The book won a W. Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction and was later adapted into a two-part series for BBC Television.

Jacob's Gift (2005) is a memoir recounting the lives of three generations of his own Jewish family as well as exploring wider questions of identity and belonging.[15] In 2008, he broadcast a two-part series for BBC Radio 4 – British Jews and the Dream of Zion – as well as two TV documentaries for BBC Four: How to be a Good President[16] and President Hollywood.

The Righteous Men (2006), is a religious thriller published under the Bourne nom de plume. It is about a news reporter whose life is disrupted when his wife is kidnapped while he is reporting a story of a militia man found dead. As more murders of 'righteous men' happen across the globe, Will soon finds himself in the middle of a plot to bring about nothing less than Judgement Day.

The book was followed by another Sam Bourne title, The Last Testament (2007), set against the backdrop of the Middle East peace process. It draws on the author's experiences in that region as a reporter for over twenty years, and a Guardian newspaper sponsored dialogue which was influential in the 2003 Geneva Accords. The central character finds herself involved in a mix of the modern political situation and ancient revelations. The Final Reckoning (2008), was based on the true story of the Avengers: a group of Holocaust survivors who sought revenge against their Nazi persecutors, and just missed the peak of The Sunday Times best-seller list. Just before The Chosen One (2010), the fourth thriller by Sam Bourne was published in the UK, The Bookseller reported in April 2010 that HarperCollins had signed Freedland for three more Bourne books.[17] HarperCollins published "Pantheon" in July 2012. Freedland's sixth novel, The 3rd Woman, was published by HarperCollins in 2015. His sixth Bourne novel, To Kill a President, was published by HarperCollins on 4 July 2017.[18] The seventh novel under the Sam Bourne pseudonym, To Kill the Truth, was published in February 2019.[19]

Views

Israel, Zionism and antisemitism

A leading liberal Zionist in the UK,[20] he wrote in 2012 that he uses the word Zionism infrequently, as the word has been misunderstood and has become defined as right-wing.[21] On the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, he believes that military action perpetuates conflict and has called for negotiations to end the cycles of violence.[22] He defends Israel's right to exist despite the disposession of the Palestinians,[23] but hopes that Israel will recognise the 'high price' paid by Palestinians.[23]

Freedland has accused the Labour Party in the UK of being in denial on the issue of antisemitism.[24][25] He has urged the left to treat Jews "the same way you’d treat any other minority".[23] He has also commented on the perceived antisemitic expressions of Palestinians with whom Corbyn has associated and expressed the view that many of the Labour Party's new members were hostile to Jews.[26][27][28][29] Freedland has attracted some criticism for his views.[30][31][32][33][34][35][36]

Other issues

Freedland was critical of the role of the local authority and management company in the period leading up to the Grenfell Tower fire.[37] He believes that the British public are tired of the duration and impact of austerity.[38] He is concerned that the impact of Hurricane Harvey in the United States received more publicity than more serious events in Asia. Freedland is also concerned about the war in Yemen and the role of western governments in supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia.[39] He maintains that reduced police funding enables terrorism in the United Kingdom and blames the large Internet companies for not preventing the spread of terrorist material.[40]

Personal life

Freedland is married to Sarah Peters, a radio and podcast producer. They have two sons, Jacob and Sam, and conform to Conservative Judaism.[41]

Bibliography

Books
  • Bring Home the Revolution: The Case for a British Republic (Fourth Estate, 1998) ISBN 1-85702-547-4
  • Jacob's Gift: A Journey into the Heart of Belonging (Hamish Hamilton, 2005), ISBN 0-241-14243-1
  • The Righteous Men (HarperCollins, 2006) ISBN 0-00-720328-4
  • The Last Testament, published elsewhere as The Jerusalem Secret (HarperCollins, 2007) ISBN 978-0-00-720333-8
  • The Final Reckoning (HarperCollins, 2008) ISBN 978-0-00-726649-4
  • The Chosen One (HarperCollins, 2010)
  • Pantheon (HarperCollins, July 5, 2012)
  • The 3rd Woman (Harper August 4, 2015) ISBN 978-0062207555 (first published under real name J. Freedland, not Sam Bourne)
  • To Kill the President (HarperCollins, 12 June 2017) ISBN 978-0007413720
  • To Kill the Truth (Quercus, 21 February 2019) ISBN 978-1787474895
  • To Kill a Man (Quercus, 19 March 2020) ISBN 978-1787474956

Articles
  • "Trump's Chaver in Jerusalem" (review of Anshel Pfeffer, Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu, Basic Books, 2018), New York Review of Books, vol. LXV, no 13 (August 16, 2018), pp. 32–34. "As Pfeffer concludes, 'His [Netanyahu's] ultimate legacy will not be a more secure nation, but a deeply fractured Israeli society, living behind walls.'"

References
  1. "'FREEDLAND, Jonathan Saul', Who's Who 2012, A & C Black, 2012; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2011; online edn". Retrieved 9 November 2012.
  2. Jonathan Freedland, "In death – as in life – my mother was rescued by love", The Guardian, 18 May 2012.
  3. Freedland, Jonathan (3 May 2018). "A lifetime of life writing". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  4. "Conversations with friends about their lives: Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland". 20 June 2020.
  5. "List of previous fellows". Laurence Stern Fellowship. City University.
  6. "Awards 2008". The Guardian. London. 23 June 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2011.
  7. Freedland, Jonathan. "Bush's Amazing Achievement". The New York Review of Books.
  8. Williams, Martin (21 May 2014), "Two Guardian journalists win Orwell prize for journalism", The Guardian.
  9. Katie Rosseinsky, Kate (21 May 2014), "Double win for Alan Johnson as This Boy receives the Orwell Prize", The Daily Telegraph.
  10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 29 January 2016. Retrieved 9 October 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. Jason Deans "Janine Gibson appointed editor-in-chief of theguardian.com", theguardian.com, 7 March 2014
  12. "Are Blairites being purged from the Guardian?". The Spectator. 21 January 2016. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  13. Gayle, Damien (8 November 2019). "General election: Nicola Sturgeon launches campaign for 'most important election in our lifetimes' – as it happened". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  14. Sabin, Lamiat (8 November 2019). "The Guardian smears Labour councillor as anti-semite in case of mistaken identity". Morning Star. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  15. Anthony Juluius "The bearers of memory", The Guardian, 19 February 2005
  16. Freedland, Jonathan (14 September 2008). "How to be a good president". Documentary. BBC.
  17. Page, Benedicte (16 April 2010). "Three Sam Bournes for HC". The Bookseller. Retrieved 22 June 2011.
  18. "To Kill the President: The most explosive thriller of the year | Harper Collins Australia". Harper Collins Australia. Retrieved 16 June 2017.
  19. "To Kill the Truth". Retrieved 9 September 2019.
  20. Lerman, Antony (22 August 2014), "The End of Liberal Zionism: Israel’s Move to the Right Challenges Diaspora Jews", New York Times.
  21. Freedland, Jonathan (18 July 2012), "Yearning for the same land", New Statesman.
  22. Freedland, Jonathan (26 July 2014). "Israel's fears are real, but this Gaza war is utterly self-defeating". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  23. Freedland, Jonathan (29 April 2016). "My plea to the left: treat Jews the same way you'd treat any other minority". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  24. Freedland, Jonathan (17 September 2018). "Friends who are enemies". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  25. Freedland, Jonathan (27 September 2017). "Labour's denial of antisemitism in its ranks leaves the party in a dark place". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  26. Freedland, Jonathan (18 March 2016). "Labour and the left have an antisemitism problem". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  27. Mance, Henry (1 June 2016). "Jeremy Corbyn warns of Brexit risk to workers' rights". Financial Times. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  28. Doherty, Rosa (1 June 2016). "Corbyn takes aim at Jewish journalist in new documentary". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  29. Rosenberg, Yair (3 June 2016). "Jeremy Corbyn Slams Jewish Journalist for Writing About Anti-semitism in Labour Party". The Tablet. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  30. Alcott, Blake (13 February 2015). "Why Jonathan Freedland Isn't Fit to be the New Editor-in-Chief of the Guardian". Counterpunch. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  31. White, Ben (16 May 2014). "Excusing ethnic cleansing: Liberal Zionists, Israel and the Nakba". Ben White. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  32. Cronin, David (11 March 2015). "How The Guardian told me to steer clear of Palestine". Electronic Intifada. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  33. Cook, Jonathan (8 August 2018). "Labour's crisis is over Israel, not anti-semitism". Jonathan Cook. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  34. Cook, Jonathan (8 August 2018). "As battle rages in UK Labour Party, Moshe Machover expelled after asserting 'Anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism'". Jonathan Cook. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  35. Wimborne-Idrissi, Naomi (30 September 2017). "Freedland's gymnastics over Labour and antisemitism". Jewish Voice for Labour. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  36. Cymru, Nation (2 May 2019). "Guardian columnist criticised for 'mocking' Welsh in antisemitism article". Cymru Nation. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  37. "Grenfell Tower will forever stand as a rebuke to the right", The Guardian.
  38. Freedland, Jonathan (21 June 2017), "Here’s what the Queen’s speech needed to say – but didn't", The Guardian.
  39. Freedland, Jonathan (1 September 2017), "There's a disaster much worse than Texas. But no one talks about it", The Guardian.
  40. Freedland, Jonathan (20 September 2017), "It isn’t just tech giants that disown responsibility for terrorist attacks", The Guardian.
  41. Freedland, Michael (29 June 2019). "Freedland on Freedland". Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
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