Nahum Barnea

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Nahum Barnea (Hebrew: נחום ברנע) (born 1944) is an Israeli publicist and journalist who writes for Yedioth Ahronoth and Ha'Ayin HaShevi'it. He won the 2007 Israel Prize for communication.

1 Biography
2 Career as a journalist
3 Criticism of Barnea
4 Books
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Biography

Nahum Barnea was born in Petah Tikva in 1944 as Nahum Borstein. He served in the IDF in Nahal Mutznah and continued to serve on reserve duty (miluim) as a fighter until after the first Lebanon War (1982). He earned a B. A. in history and political science (?) from Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Barnea is married and is the father of three children. His son Yonatan was killed in February 1996 in a terrorist attack by Hamas on Bus 18 in Jerusalem.^[1]

[edit] Career as a journalist

Nahum Barnea began his path in journalism wen he was studying in university by writing for the student newspaper Pi Ha'Aton ("Mouth of the Donkey"), and from there continued to the newspaper Davar, where he wrote from 1967 to 1982. Among other things, he was the newspaper's envoy to Washington, D. C. Afterward he founded and edited the weekly paper Koteret Roshit ("Headline"), which excelled in its level of writing deeper than the average in Israel, and also among a group of young writers who substantially influenced journalism.

Since 1989, Nahum Barnea has been a staff writer for Yedioth Ahronoth, and his articles echo widely. Among other things, he is considered the one who understood that in the discussion between Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres during the 1996 elections in Israel, Netanyahu gained an advantage.^{[citation needed]}

Barnea was awarded the Sokolov Prize for journalism in 1981. According to a survey in 1998, he was considered the most influential journalist of the first 50 years of the state of Israel.^{[citation needed]}

Barnea won the Israel Prize for communication in 2007. The judges who awarded the prize said: "Nahum Barnea is a journalist who almost every young writer aspires to emulate." They added, "Barnea always insists on 'being there,' close to events, even in places of social tension, even in wars and on days of terror attacks, even when his presence places his life in danger."^[2]

On 29 March 2007 he accepted an award from the president of Tel Aviv University for "his achievements and his unique contribution to the profession of journalism in Israel.

[edit] Criticism of Barnea

In 2007 Barnea was criticized for defending prime minister Ehud Olmert. Yoav Yitzhak claimed that Barnea did not shy away from publishing statements he knew were untrue.^[3] Similarly, the General Comptroller, Yaron Zalika, complained to the editor of Yedioth Ahronoth about a negative article that Barnea wrote about him. Zalika claims that Barnea criticized and insulted him in his column, without allowing him an opportunity to respond, after Zalika complained about Olmert regarding his involvement with Clal.^[4]

[edit] Books

Barnea has published two collections of his articles, titled יורים ובוכים ("They shoot and cry") and ימי נתניהו ("Days of Netanyahu").

יורים ובוכים, הוצאת זמורה ביתן, a collection of articles he wrote for Davar, published in 1981.
ימי נתניהו, טורים פוליטיים, הוצאת הוצאת זמורה ביתן, a collection of articles he wrote for Yedioth Ahronoth and Ha'Ayin HaShevi'it, published in 1999.