Lisa Goldman

I’m an Israeli-Canadian journalist and blogger, currently based in New York City. Before that I lived in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, where I wrote for the Israeli and international media and maintained a blog, which I launched in 2004.

My articles have been published in Haaretz, Time Out Tel Aviv, the New York Times, Forward, Jewish Quarterly, Columbia Journalism Review, Slate and the Guardian, amongst others.

Recent Articles

A giant portrait of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a protest against the Jewish Nation-State Law, Tel Aviv, July 30, 2018. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Welcome to Netanyahu’s fortress state

The detention and interrogation of high-profile figures such as Peter Beinart and Reza Aslan at Israeli entry points is forcing liberal American Jews to reckon with what Israel is becoming. Over the last month, the Israeli and international media reported several incidents involving Shin Bet agents at ports of entry to Israel detaining prominent Jewish Americans for lengthy, aggressive…

By Lisa Goldman August 14, 2018

Illustrative photo of former GPO head Danny Seaman (Kobi Gideon/Flash90)

‘I am an Islamophobe,’ boasts ex-director of Israel’s press office

The man who once had sole authority to decide whether or not a journalist could work in Israel announces that he is an Islamophobe, thinks ‘Arabs lie.’ Daniel Seaman, the former director of Israel’s Government Press Office, said Thursday during a panel discussion on i24 News, the Israel-based satellite news station, that he is an Islamophobe. Sitting on a three-person panel with…

By Lisa Goldman May 31, 2018

Reducing Israel’s separation barrier to an aesthetic failure

A new video series about ‘design flaws’ tackles the question of why the world is so irked by Israel’s separation barrier. Surely it’s not the fact that it cages in millions of people and annexes roughly 10 percent of the West Bank. No, it’s just a matter of aesthetics. In a video clip published online…

By Lisa Goldman April 23, 2018

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a rally with his supporters and for the Jewish holiday of Passover in Tel Aviv, March 22, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Racism is the only factor that can sway Netanyahu’s base

For the first time since he took office, Netanyahu did something that angered his loyal base to the extent that they are threatening to vote for another party. On Monday Benjamin Netanyahu proved two things: one, that his base of fanatically loyal voters are motivated primarily by racism; two, that Facebook’s “angry” emoticon can drive government policy that affects the…

By Lisa Goldman April 4, 2018

Screenshot Prime Minister Netanyahu's Facebook post, which derides Israeli media as 'fake news.'

Netanyahu to Facebook followers: Israeli media is all ‘fake news’

The prime minister, who has attacked individual reporters and media outlets for reporting ‘fake news,’ has abandoned any pretense of respect for freedom of the press. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today described the Israeli print and broadcast media, almost in its entirety, as “fake news” and “liars.” The prime minister posted a list of nearly all the…

By Lisa Goldman March 26, 2018

Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops during a protest to show solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, Nabi Saleh, West Bank, April 21, 2017. (Flash90)

Nabi Saleh is where I lost my Zionism

By the time I began going to Nabi Saleh, I had spent about four years reporting on what I saw in the West Bank and Gaza, watching detachedly as my politics moved ever leftward. What I witnessed in that small West Bank village was the last straw. A short video of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi slapping…

By Lisa Goldman December 24, 2017

Why I’m so proud to be a part of +972 Magazine

When we launched +972 in the summer of 2010, I did not quite realize what its impact would be — that we would soon find our articles quoted in State Department communiques and prominent media outlets like the New York Times and the Guardian; that diplomats and think tanks would invite our contributors to speak…

By Lisa Goldman December 24, 2017

Palestinian youth hold a Palestinian flag outside the Aqsa Mosque in the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount compound, East Jerusalem. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Why Trump won’t move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem

The city is a tinderbox, and no one wants to set off a fatal spark. A prominent Israeli journalist tweeted on Wednesday that Netanyahu’s government expects the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “perhaps as early as Sunday.” Dana Weiss, the chief political analyst for Channel 2 News and the anchor of her own…

By Lisa Goldman November 30, 2017

CCTV footage shows Israeli security forces assaulting a wounded Palestinian man and hospital staff during a raid on Makassed Hospital, East Jerusalem, July 21, 2017.

WATCH: Police assault wounded Palestinian patient, staff at J’lem hospital

Newly-released video shows Israeli security forces storming an East Jerusalem hospital in late July, as they tried to prevent doctors from bringing a wounded Palestinian into surgery. A Palestinian man died on a gurney in a Jerusalem hospital last month, as Israeli police in full riot gear tried to prevent medical staff from wheeling him into…

By Lisa Goldman August 11, 2017

Saba Abu Ubeid, moments after being shot by an Israeli sniper, May 12, 2017. Ubeid was pronounced dead in hospital shortly after. (Miki Kratsman/Activestills.org)

Israeli sniper shoots dead unarmed Palestinian at West Bank demo

Israeli security forces have shot and killed 21 Palestinians with live ammunition so far in 2017; Saba Abu Ubeid, 23, is the latest victim. An Israeli army sniper shot and killed an unarmed Palestinian man on Friday afternoon during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah. Saba Abu Ubeid, 23, was hit in…

By Lisa Goldman May 12, 2017