32 | SEPTEMBER 21 • 2023 

I 

was afraid at first that my 
quiet and melancholy songs 
weren’t the kind that would 
encourage soldiers at the front 
— but I learned that these won-
derful kids don’t need glorious 
battle anthems. Now between 
battles they’re open to my songs 
maybe more than ever before. 
I came to raise their spirits and 
they raised mine.
” 
— Leonard Cohen, Jewish 
Canadian singer/songwriter to 
a reporter from Israeli paper 
Yediot Ahronot, somewhere in 
Sinai, October, 1973.
Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen 
in the Sinai, by Canadian/Israeli 
author Matti Friedman, is the 
unknown story of Leonard 
Cohen’s concerts for Israeli 

troops during the difficult exis-
tentially challenging time of the 
Yom Kippur War, 50 years ago.
The title of the book refers 
both to the prayer Unetanneh 
Tokef, chanted on Yom Kippur 
and Cohen’s song of the 
same title and is currently 
being adapted into a televi-
sion mini-series written by 
Yehonatan Indursky (Shtisel) to 
air in 2024.
Raised in a Canadian Jewish 
home in Toronto, Friedman 
had an appreciation for the 
musical and poetic influence of 
Leonard Cohen, but it was not 
until making aliyah in 1995, 
becoming a journalist and 
serving with the Israeli military 
in Lebanon in 1982 it became 

clear how much he was loved. 
“Fifty-thousand people 
came out for a Leonard Cohen 
Concert in Ramat Gan,
” 
recalled Friedman. “I did not 
appreciate the extent to which 
Cohen remains a music god 
in Israel, like in Canada — but 
people remember that during 
one of the darkest moments in 
Israeli history, Cohen showed 
up.
” 
Friedman began to research 
and uncover details of Cohen’s 
concerts. 
Friedman shared a Canadian 
publisher with Leonard Cohen, 
and he asked a publishing 
rep to put him in touch with 
Cohen. He got a yes answer, 
went to bed and then woke up 

to an email from the publisher 
asking if he had seen the news 
— it was Nov. 7, 2016, and 
Leonard Cohen had died. 
After the news, Friedman 
said he “was pretty bummed 
out. I didn’t do much with 
the book after that until fate 
intervened and made it up to 
me in the form of Chris Long, 
librarian/archivist at McMaster 
University in Hamilton, 
Ontario.
”
During his research, 
Friedman had found a foot-
note reference to an archive 
of Cohen materials that 
supposedly held a 45-page 
handwritten notebook kept by 
Cohen in Israel that included 
short story segments, song 

MARTIN ELLIOT JAFFE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

YOM KIPPUR
BOOK REVIEW

 WHO BY FIRE: 
Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

Leonard Cohen 
playing to 
Israeli soldiers

ISAAC SHOKAL

