My Press Cards collection of 40 years
Throughout my 40 years of work for the international media – starting as an apprentice and a production assistant, through a producer on ABC News and NBC News to the CEO position of a large media company in Israel, I was present at dozens of dramatic news events that affected the world and our lives here in Israel.Then, one day, without an advance notice, someone decided for you that it was time to stop, and sent you to pack up your belongings.
Before turning off the lights in your office, you picked up all the memories you have collected, those you have not yet forgotten, and deposited it all in a one, not too big, cardboard box.
Few still photographs and lots of journalistic credentials and Press Cards in different languages, colors, and sizes. Only according to your picture on each one of the plastic ID cards – time marks can be seen. There are no more curls and the hair is no longer black.
At home, you added to the box all your communication and electrical accessories, notebooks pens and the rain-cover and the baseball cap marked with big white letters – NEWS! All these items you gathered while traveling between continents throughout the four decades. “Things” that you have kept with you years after becoming an executive. You kept them all as if you were standing by, ready to go, waiting just for a phone call from the head office – to run to the airport and take a flight to somewhere around the globe, to another hotspot, to cover a new breaking news region…
Every person has a name and every country has its telephone and electrical outlet type and you collected it all.
You will also put aside and into the box all the passports and notebooks you kept, some of which contain telephone lists of people who once were and are no longer, in countries that were once on the maps and are no longer there today.
Suddenly I realize I am writing in the second person language. As if it’s not me who is writing this. Probably some kind of repression attempt that almost succeeded. I am the one who “hung up my shoes” after four fascinating decades. It was I who landed after countless work-related flights, usually in the dark, just to make another connection in Europe.
It was I who missed my two girls’ graduation parties in kindergarten and school because there was always something to do, more significant to do at work.
And in the closet, the folded, ironed, and starched dress shirts are placed on the shelf. For my meetings today the dress code is a T-shirt. The ties will also remain hanging alongside the suits of the CEO who once managed hundreds of employees. Today, I am in a hurry to pick up my grandchildren from kindergarten. The life of a retiree.
On a shoot for ABC News 20/20 piece in 1981 about the fight of Israel against international terrorism we interviewed Samir Kuntar a Palestinian 16 years of age, who was responsible for one of the most traumatic terror attacks in Israeli history, on April 1979, a father and his daughter in Nahariya, Israel, tried for life – released in a prisoners exchange and was killed later by an air raid while in Syria commanding a Hizbullah special forces group. – Samir is in the middle between ( Left ) Ehud Yaari an Israeli TV correspondent and a leading journalist who helped us with the interview. Across from Yaari and Kuntar is Geraldo Rivera an ABC News 20/20 senior correspondent. The interview was done in the Israeli prison outside Beer-Sheba in the South of the country, This photo was taken by me during the visit to the prison.
December 1989 the Velvet Revolution, Prague with students demonstrating, protesting the communist ruling party, on Wenceslas Square The picture was taken with my camera by the local producer who was my translator during the work in Prague.
On the border between the former Yugoslavia and Albania, standing by for 3 weeks, watchung developments in that country expecting a revolution which never happened On the border between the former Yugoslavia and Albania, standing by for 3 weeks, watchung developments in that country expecting a revolution which never happened
with the NBC News team Israel David RIP sound tech, on the left and Ariye Kabiljo RIP cameraman on the right. I am in the middle. On the border between the former Yugoslavia and Albania, standing by for 3 weeks, watchung developments in that country expecting a revolution which never happened. 1989-1990 The picture was taken using my camera by the local driver who was part of our team on the ground.
1991 U.S Troops landed in Mogadishu airport. I was there This picture was taken by me in Mogadishu airport
Mogadishu refugee camp makeshift hats on the main street of the Somali capital. I was there for NBC News 1992 This picture was taken by me in Mogadishu
Flying into Mogadishu 1992 This picture was taken by me while flying into Mogadishu
NBC correspondent Martin Fletch and NBC cameraman Jeff Riggins in one of the refugee camps we filmed for our special reports from Somalia 1991-1992 This picture was taken by me in Mogadishu
Sarajevo under siege 1993 during a break – a short ceasefire – people rushed to stock up on food. Hoping not get hit by a random sniper’s fire. This picture was taken by me in Mogadishu
the Sarajevo Holiday Inn during the long siege – home away from home to all the foreign press there 1993. This picture was taken by me in Sarajevo during our two week stay in the city under siege
Piled up wreckage of cars destroyed by the fighting troops around the city – were used as a safety wall protecting against sniper fire along the main road in Sarajevo, called also “Snipers’ Alley” This picture was taken by me in Sarajevo during our two week stay in the city under siege
Haifa, Northern Israel, mothers protesting against the war in Lebanon. 2006 the 2nd Lebanon war This picture was taken by me in Haifa during the 2nd Lebanon war
Gaza War, also known as Operation Cast Lead 2009 a massive, 22-day military assault on the Gaza Strip – with the covering press corp across from Gaza, on the Israeli side of the border. This picture was taken by me on the Israeli- Gaza border during Operation Cast Lead.