Israel is a country in conflict. That has always been true, and the IDF has always been a dominant feature in the local news cycle. As such, one of the most important roles in Israeli journalism is the military correspondent.
It is a role that covers some of the most important news stories to come out of the Jewish state, and during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that’s more true than ever.
It takes a highly skilled journalist to handle such a demanding job. It also requires keeping up with the rapid pace of military news and going into battle zones to see the war firsthand. For The Jerusalem Post, that skilled journalist is Yonah Jeremy Bob.
An accomplished reporter and author who has been working with the Post for years, covering everything from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial and the International Criminal Court’s legal cases against Israel to the latest developments in Israeli-Iranian espionage and, of course, the war with Hamas.
In our “Behind the Bylines” column, we look at the people behind the articles that keep our paper – and website – running. As the Israel-Hamas war continues to rage, Yonah managed to make time in his ultra-busy schedule to sit down with In Jerusalem and speak about his journalist journey, and what makes his work so important.
How did you get to Israel?
My wife, first son, and I moved to Israel from Teaneck, New Jersey, in 2009. Since then, we have had two additional children in Israel.
My wife and I had spent significant prior periods living in and visiting Israel. We thought that this was a historic time for the Jewish people and that while American Jewry is very strong, and the US is a great country, the long-term future of the Jewish people, for us, and most importantly for our kids, was in Israel.
We are very proud of that decision and continue to stand by it 100%, especially seeing fantastic things happening with our kids Jewishly, which would have been much more challenging in the US.
What led you to start working at the ‘Post’?
I wrote for a high school student quarterly supplement of the Baltimore Jewish Times in the mid-1990s and for a few publications, Jewish and general, at Columbia University, when I was in college in the late 1990s.
From 1999-2001, I did ghostwriting for policy position papers, as well as newspaper op-eds for Israel’s ambassador to the UN and Israel’s consul general in New York. I also wrote and edited Israel Line, a multi-week update/newsletter from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
I took a break from the media from 2001-2012 to attend law school and become a lawyer in the private sector in the US, and then for the Justice Ministry and IDF international law divisions in Israel. I started working for The Jerusalem Post in early 2012 on the Internet desk.
People asked me why I would leave a higher-paying field like law to be a journalist. I told them that I spent sometimes four hours a day reading the news in my spare time because I was so interested in national security policy, politics, and foreign affairs, so it made more sense if I would get paid to do that.
What has your journalistic career been like?
Within three months of working on the Internet desk, I was offered the job of legal affairs correspondent. In my early years, I sought to distinguish myself with exclusives about war crimes issues due to my insider connections in the IDF and Israeli ministries from my time working there.
In 2016, I was the first Israeli journalist to interview the International Criminal Court prosecutor in The Hague. In 2016, I also covered the Mossad, Iran’s nuclear program, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and cyberwarfare.
In 2018, long before he was indicted, I was the first journalist to break the story that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be indicted for the grave bribery charge in Case 4000, not just breach of trust.
In 2019, I published my first book, as sole author, Justice in the West Bank?
From 2019 to the present, I published dozens of exclusive reports related to the Mossad. In 2021, I published a second book, as second author-editor, Raid on the Red Sea, with lead author ex-deputy IDF intelligence chief Amos Gilboa.
In September 2023, I wrote an award-winning book published by Simon & Schuster called Target Tehran, about the Mossad’s secret war against Iran’s nuclear program and its role in the Abraham Accords. It was translated and published in Hebrew by Yediot Books in April 2024, with an English paperback version due in September 2024. The Wall Street Journal listed the book in its “Top 5 for Politics for 2023,” and it won the Jewish Book Council/Natan Award for 2024.
What is it like being a military reporter during wartime?
It’s insane. From October 2023 to January 2024, the most intense portion of the war, I worked inhuman hours and lived and breathed the war in almost every waking moment, routinely doing emergency IDF briefings at 6 a.m. or some other crazy hour.
I have visited Gaza City, Shifa Hospital, Khan Yunis, Rafah, and the Philadelphi Corridor, as well as countless visits to the northern and southern border. Those visits were super exciting, if also sometimes terrifying.
It’s also a huge responsibility to get things right and updated in an environment that constantly evolves in much larger ways than the news normally changes.
Side piece of advice: If you are a journalist traveling in a Namer high-armored personnel carrier, bring earplugs.
What is your favorite anecdote?
Covering the pope’s visit and his praying at the Western Wall. It was a moment of tremendous hope and pride for Jews and for humanity.
For almost 2,000 years, the Catholic Church had some pretty bad things to say about Jews. If the pope could now visit the modern and independent State of Israel and pray at our Western Wall, our holiest site to show respect, then there is a lot of hope for humanity, even if changes take time.
What advice do you have for aspiring journalists?
Be very, very devoted and committed. It is harder to be a journalist now than at any other time in decades, even as it is probably more important now than ever because there is an increasing number of groups actively trying to ignore facts and manipulate the public to believe in alternate, disconnected realities.
Find ways to make sure you have fun doing it so that it is not just work.
Grow really, really thick skin [when dealing with] your critics, and know that if you report and stick to the truth, that will save you and earn you people’s respect – even if in some moments it seems like the easier way out of a conflict would be to let your critics push you around.■