Eric Silver, former Guardian correspondent in Jerusalem
I've been dipping into a collection of the journalism of the late Eric Silver, who was based in Jerusalem for nearly 40 years until his death in 2008, reporting for the Guardian, Observer, Independent, Jewish Chronicle and others.
Dateline Jerusalem, which will be published next week, inevitably covers globally important events – including the aftermath of the 1967 war, the Yom Kippur war of 1973, peace with Egypt, the first and second intifadas, the Oslo accords, Yasser Arafat's return and Camp David.
But it's the impressionistic and observational pieces that I really loved, evoking a different kind and pace of journalism - reflective, rich, textured and, yes, slower - than that which predominates today.
I never met Eric; he left the Guardian in 1987, two years before I joined its staff, and he died from pancreatic cancer two years before I arrived in Jerusalem. He was the Guardian's correspondent here for 11 years, before moving to become the paper's Delhi correspondent for a few years. After that, he declined to move back to London with the Guardian, instead making aliyah to return to his home in the centre of Jerusalem – more of which below – and the insecurities of freelancing.
Continue reading...