A Window on Life in Israel
Allison Kaplan Sommer is a writer who lives in Ra’anana, a suburb located about a half hour’s drive north from Tel Aviv. Originally from Rhode Island, her life sent her drifting down the northeastern coast of the U.S. before taking an unexpected sharp turn towards the Middle East. Like the nice Jewish girl she was raised to be, she went to a Good College – Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and went to graduate school, getting a master’s degree at the Columbia School of Journalism. She worked in local radio and television news in her home state for a while, but was drawn to New York City, her favorite place in the world. Taking advantage of what she learned in her junior year abroad in Israel, she began writing for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Associated Press of the Jewish world, covering the United Nations and national Jewish organizations in New York. Then, during the Persian Gulf Crisis in 1990, she got a call from Jerusalem – did she want Wolf Blitzer’s old job after he moved to CNN? Did she ever. She packed her suitcase, reluctantly left Manhattan behind, moved to DC, and took the job of Washington correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, which she held for three years. She might have remained within the Beltway and become a permanent part of the national journalist pack, had true love not intervened. She met and married an Israeli law professor, packed again, and moved to Tel Aviv. There, she continued to write for the Jerusalem Post for another decade, along with beginning a career in motherhood – definitely harder than journalism. What has she written about? What hasn’t she written about? Pretty much everything that happens in Israel: Israel-U.S. relations throughout the Bush and Clinton and Bush administrations and the Shamir, Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, Barak and Sharon governments. Middle East peace and Israeli politics, Israel-Diaspora relations, immigrant absorption, the growth of the media and the hi-tech industry in Israel, women’s issues She was even the newspaper’s TV critic, Internet columnist and had her own column for two years. Today, she works for the organization Israel 21c, freelances for Hadassah Magazine and other publications, and shlepps her two kids around in her minivan a lot. And blogs. And blogs, and blogs, and blogs. When in the United States, she gives lectures about Israel through the UJC Speaker’s Bureau.