All quotes from material by Leonard Cohen, published or unpublished, appear with the permission of the Leonard Cohen Family Trust and Old Ideas, LLC. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION
The description of Cohen’s concert for soldiers in Sinai is from the defunct Israeli music periodical Lahiton, November 2, 1973 (Hebrew). No date is given for the concert, but the unnamed reporter writes that it was on the fourteenth day of fighting, which would have been October 19.
1. “ ‘I just feel like I want to shut up. Just shut up….’ ” Leonard Cohen speaking to Roy Hollingworth of Melody Maker, February 24, 1973. In the invaluable resource Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, edited by Jeff Burger (2014).
2. “ ‘For me, poetry is the evidence of a life…’ ” This quote, in Cohen’s voice, was featured at a memorial concert held in Montreal in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMxWjSpuefo.
CHAPTER 1: RADAR STATION 528, SHARM EL-SHEIKH
The memories of Ruti Porper (née Avraham) are from an interview in Ramat Hasharon on November 21, 2019, and from Ruti’s diary entries, postcards, and photographs. Some of her writing from the war appeared first in Yediot Ahronot in an article by Eti Abramov, “Things are good here. I miss the ones who were killed,” September 11, 2013 (Hebrew).
I interviewed Pnina Biran (Lisser) and Orly Barkan (Sheffer) together in Herzliya on January 9, 2020.
Biographical details about Doron Lieberman, killed in the attack at Radar Station 528 (Mt. Safra) on October 6, 1973, are from a memorial book published by his family after the war (Hebrew). Additional details are from my interviews with Ruti Porper, Pnina Biran, and Orly Barkan.
1. “ ‘I’ll line my basket with Kinneret memories…’ ” From the Hebrew poem “Shai” (Gift), by Rachel Bluwstein, published 1930.
2. “At 1:51 p.m. one of the radios crackled at Babylon…” From the military history For Heaven’s Sake: Squadron 201 in the Yom Kippur War, by Aviram Barkai, Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir, 2013 (Hebrew), page 153.
3. “ ‘The most important weapon in the sector,’ ” and the pilots’ memory of watching Tora! Tora! Tora! are from Barkai, For Heaven’s Sake, page 99.
Additional details on the attack at the Radar Station 528 are from a Channel 1 program from 2010 (Hebrew, reported by Yariv Mozer) marking thirty-seven years since the war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKzgA0s-M0I.
CHAPTER 2: THE GATE OF HEAVEN
1. “ ‘A large part of my life was escaping. Whatever it was….’ ” From the documentary Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, directed by Nick Broomfield, 2019.
2. “ ‘I’d never been in a sunny place…’ ” Cohen speaking to Paul Williams of Crawdaddy!, March 1975. From Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen.
3. “ ‘We cannot face heaven….’ ” Cohen speaking at a symposium of the Montreal Jewish community in 1964: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFMm_x1qlPY.
4. “ ‘I live here with a woman and a child….’ ” From Cohen’s song “There Is a War,” 1974.
5. “ ‘Once, long ago, my songs were not sold…’ ” Cohen speaking to Alastair Pirrie of New Musical Express, March 10, 1973. In Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 42.
6. “ ‘It’s over…’ ” From Cohen’s interview with Roy Hollingworth of Melody Maker, in Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen.
CHAPTER 3: EGYPT’S BULLET
The Cohen manuscript is kept in the McClelland & Stewart archive at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. I’m grateful to librarian Chris Long for assistance in locating the document, filed under the name “Unidentified—possibly early draft of My Life in Art.” I learned of the existence of the manuscript from the footnotes of Ira Nadel’s 1996 biography Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen. I corresponded with Ira in 2019 and am grateful for his assistance.
CHAPTER 4: ACCORDING TO WHOSE PLAN?
1. “In Florida…a Jewish eye doctor…Another American doctor was operating on soldiers four hours after landing from Pittsburgh…A surgeon from Cape Town, South Africa, pushed onto a flight…” From the 1974 book October Earthquake: Yom Kippur 1973, by Zeev Schiff, translated from the Hebrew by Louis Williams.
2. “ ‘At that time, before we had any political stances about Israel one way or another…’ ” From a telephone interview with Aviva Layton in Los Angeles, March 18, 2020.
3. “Soldiers in close formation…” From Cohen’s poem “Lines from My Grandfather’s Journal,” in The Spice-Box of Earth, 1961.
4. “ ‘I don’t have to have a song called “Give Peace a Chance.”…’ ” Cohen speaking to Alastair Pirrie of New Musical Express, March 1973. In Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 43.
5. “ ‘A lot of people who think that I’ve changed my religion…’ ” Cohen speaking to Stina Lundberg Dabrowski of Swedish National Television, in Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 414.
6. “ ‘Only nationalism produces art….’ ” Quoted in A Broken Hallelujah, by Liel Leibovitz, 2014, page 77.
7. “ ‘The Canadians are like the Jews…’ ” Cohen speaking to Paul Williams of Crawdaddy!, March 1975. In Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 85.
CHAPTER 5: A WOUND IN THE JEWISH WAR
Excerpted from the Cohen manuscript in the McClelland & Stewart archive.
CHAPTER 6: MYTH HOME
1. “There’s no point in starting a war right now” and other quotes from the Israel concerts in 1972 are from the documentary film Bird on a Wire, directed by Tony Palmer, released (briefly) in 1974, shelved, forgotten, and re-released in 2010.
2. “ ‘I see Marianne straight in front of me and I started crying…’ ” From “Leonard Cohen Makes It Darker,” by David Remnick, The New Yorker, October 10, 2016.
CHAPTER 7: BEGINNING AGAIN
1. “ ‘Suddenly his manager came up to me and said Leonard wants to meet me…’ ” The anecdote and quote from Rachel Teri are from “Like a Bird on a Wire,” by Rona Kuperboim of Yediot Ahronot (Hebrew, May 28, 2009). Rachel, who now lives in Los Angeles, did not respond to attempts to contact her for this book.
Ilana Rovina was eighty-six and ailing when contacted by telephone on September 2, 2020, and did not remember any details of the Yom Kippur war tour. She died the following month of Covid-19. The recollection here comes from Matti Caspi’s website, which includes a section on the war tour.
Oshik Levi’s recollections are from an interview with him in Tel Aviv on June 6, 2018.
Mordechai (Pupik) Arnon’s recollections are from an interview at his home in Jerusalem, July 6, 2018, and from several subsequent telephone conversations. He died on January 3, 2020.
The anecdote about the song “The Last Battle” comes from the Israeli music expert Ofer Gavish, based on the research of the musicologist Nahumi Har-Zion.
CHAPTER 8: WHO BY WATER
Ofer Gavish, now a music historian and tour guide, was a Phantom navigator in the 69th Squadron 69 at Ramat David. Originally from Kibbutz Yiftach. Interviewed in Tel Aviv on December 16, 2019, and January 2, 2020.
1. “The SAMs were like ‘flying telephone poles…’ ” From “The Truest Sport: Jousting With Sam and Charlie,” by Tom Wolfe, describing the air war over Vietnam at the end of 1967 (Esquire, October 1, 1975).
The navigator with the skullcap is Capt. Ze’ev Yogev Finger, who died on October 9, 1973. He was twenty-five.
The pilot Henkin is Lt. Col. Ehud Henkin, who died on October 7, 1973. He was thirty-one. His navigator was Capt. Shaul Levi, twenty-five.
Zorik is Brig. Gen. Arlozor (Zorik) Lev. He died on October 9, 1973, age forty.
Momo is Shlomo Liran, originally Shlomo Zaltzman, a Skyhawk pilot in Squadron 110 in 1973, later a prominent Israeli CEO.
The lead pilot Vilan is Avraham Vilan, then the deputy commander of Squadron 110 at Ramat David.
1. “…‘heating and cooling a piece of metal three times a day.’ ” Maj. Gen. (ret.) Giora Rom speaking to Israeli public television (Hebrew): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rnGpDOtABo.
CHAPTER 9: A SHIELD AGAINST THE ENEMY
Shoshi is Moshe “Shoshi” Rothschild, a Mystère pilot in Squadron 105 at Hatzor. Originally from Kibbutz Gvar’am. Interviewed on January 8, 2020.
1. “Pupik plays a senior officer surprising an addled new recruit…” This sketch is included on the 2004 re-release of Pupik’s album Kol Echad (Phonokol, Tel Aviv).
2. “It was then, on the first day of the war tour, that Cohen wrote a song….” Both Oshik and Matti Caspi remember him writing “Lover Lover Lover” between the two concerts at Hatzor. Giving additional credence to this version of events is that it was published during the war itself, in an article in Yediot Ahronot: “Macias hurried from the Lod airport to Tel Hashomer,” by Emmanuel Bar-Kedma, October 22, 1973 (Hebrew). “At his first concert at an air force base, the singer was struck by great emotion, because of everything he’d seen and heard, and in the break between two concerts, at midnight, poured his feelings into a new song that he wrote, put to music, and performed on the spot.” The song was “Lover Lover Lover.” The article also includes a Hebrew translation of the missing verse, the one that appears under the title “Air Base” in Chapter 10, and it’s clear from the article that Cohen performed this verse as part of the song. The precise date of the Hatzor concert is unclear, but it appears to have been around the end of the war’s first week or the beginning of the second.
The notebook Cohen had with him during the war (catalog number 37-16) is kept by his estate in Los Angeles.
1. “Invoking this shield is what a Cohen does.” For this insight I’m grateful to my friend and early reader, Cohen afficionado Jonah Mandel.
2. “Researchers studying the music of GIs in Vietnam…” From We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War, by Craig Hansen Werner and Doug Bradley, 2015.
Amos is Amos Bar-Ilan, a Skyhawk pilot in Squadron 110 at Ramat David. Originally from Kibbutz Ginnosar. Interviewed on January 8, 2020.
The concert at Ramat David took place on the evening of October 26, according to the informal “squadron book” compiled by Squadron 110 (located for me by the intrepid Ofer Gavish). The squadron flew its last mission of the war at two p.m. that afternoon.
CHAPTER 10: BROTHERS
1. “…it appeared in an article written during the war by an Israeli reporter…” Bar-Kedma in Yediot Ahronot, October 22, 1973.
2. “…‘the hottest furnace of the spirit today’…” Cohen speaking to Paul Williams of Crawdaddy!, March 1975. In Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 81.
Biographical information on the two army privates named Eliezer Cohen who died in the years before the 1973 war comes from the Israeli Defense Ministry’s memorial website, www.izkor.gov.il (Hebrew).
Details of Johnny Cash’s time in Vietnam are from Cash: The Autobiography, by Johnny Cash with Patrick Carr, 1997.
James Brown’s first quote (“where lizards wore guns”) is from “James Brown, the Sultan of Sweat and Soul,” Washington Post, December 7, 2003. His second quote (“soul brothers”) is from Jet, June 6, 1968. Both appear, along with other details of Brown’s trip to Vietnam, in The One: The Life and Music of James Brown, by R.J. Smith, 2012.
CHAPTER 11: IN THE DESERT
1. “One navigator on a Hercules transport…” This is Uri Dromi, later a prominent journalist, interviewed on January 1, 2020.
CHAPTER 12: TEA AND ORANGES
1. “ ‘I’m killing an arrogant Israeli officer…’ ” This quote from Cohen appears in Nadel’s Various Positions. It does not appear in the manuscript I found, suggesting that Nadel used a different version.
Gidi Koren’s recollections are from an interview in Tel Aviv on January 26, 2020.
CHAPTER 13: NO WORDS
Pupik’s recollections are from my interviews with him in 2019.
1. “ ‘There are those who sing laughing…’ ” Cohen speaking to Jordi Sierra i Fabra in October 1974. The interview appeared in a 1978 Spanish book titled Leonard Cohen. From Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 79.
CHAPTER 14: ALREADY WET
The anecdotes from the singers Avner Gadasi and Yardena Arazi are from the article “40 years after Yom Kippur, artists return to the shows at the front,” by Nadav Menuhin, Walla, September 13, 2013 (Hebrew).
1. “…had his leg nearly severed by shrapnel.” This was Amotz Brontman of the Nahal Brigade Entertainment Troupe.
2. “ ‘Where do you get to stand up and speak?’ ” From the article in The New Yorker cited in the notes to Chapter 6 from October 10, 2016.
3. “ ‘A pessimist is somebody who is waiting for the rain…’ ” Cohen speaking to Michel Field of France 2 TV, December 1992. In Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 313.
4. “ ‘You have a tradition which says that if things are bad we should not dwell on the sadness…’ ” Leonard Cohen quoted in Melody Maker, June 29, 1974. From The Ultimate Music Guide: Leonard Cohen, published by Time, Inc. (U.K.), 2016.
5. “ ‘When people think that a song has to make sense…’ ” Joan Baez in the 2009 documentary film Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, directed by Murray Lerner.
6. “ ‘The kid said, “Okay, okay, big-time poet…” ’ ” From I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen, by Sylvie Simmons, 2012.
7. “ ‘In a sense, when someone consents to go into a mental hospital…’ ” Cohen speaking to Steve Turner of New Musical Express, June 29, 1974. In Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 55.
8. “ ‘I was afraid at first that my quiet and melancholy songs weren’t the kind that would encourage soldiers at the front…’ ” From Bar-Kedma’s article in Yediot Ahronot, October 22, 1973.
9. “ ‘Another famous artist is the singer Leonard Cohen…’ ” From a Voice of Israel radio report during the war, preserved by the State Archive and uploaded to YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxAVJg6mQng). The reporter is Yossi Soker. The segment of Cohen’s quote beginning “Of course I have impressions” and ending with “collect material” appears in Hebrew voice-over; the translation back into English is mine.
CHAPTER 15: PSYCHOLOGY
From an interview with psychologist Joel Livne in Netanya, November 3, 2019.
CHAPTER 16: RESPITE
1. “ ‘Dakota took us back to Lod….’ ” From Cohen’s manuscript in the McClelland & Stewart archive.
CHAPTER 17: THE STORY OF ISAAC
Isaac is the photographer Isaac Shokal, interviewed at Kibbutz Evron, February 21, 2020. Isaac’s photographs appear here with his permission.
Almond Reconnaissance is my English translation of Sayeret Shaked, a unit of scouts attached to Southern Command. In the unit’s Hebrew name the word shaked, “almond,” is an acronym for shomrei kav darom, or “guardians of the southern line.”
CHAPTER 18: YUKON
Shlomi is Shlomi Gruner, interviewed in Tel Aviv on February 11, 2020.
Patzi is Amatzia Chen, interviewed at Moshav Karmei Yosef, February 20, 2020.
Eitan, the officer who rushed to the war from Ben-Gurion University, is Lt. Eitan Nir, who died on October 14, 1973. He was twenty-three.
The wounded officer Katz is Yaakov Katz, known as Ketzeleh, later a leader of the settler movement and a member of Knesset.
Saul, who Patzi’s soldiers picked up with his armoured personnel carrier, is Lt. Saul Afrik, who died on October 14, 1973. He was twenty.
The history of the 600th Brigade is The Hours, A War Journal: The 600th Brigade During the Yom Kippur War, by Menachem Ben Shalom (Hebrew, 2019). Ben Shalom was the brigade’s reconnaissance officer. I’m grateful for his assistance.
1. “ ‘We spotted the commandos…’ ” The soldier speaking is Nissim Shalom (from The Hours).
2. “A loader named Andrei…” This is tank crewman Andrei Friedman (from The Hours).
Ofer, who saw the Egyptian with the RPG, is tank driver Ofer Idan (from The Hours).
CHAPTER 19: AFRICA
The officer Joshua, who died during the crossing, is Capt. Yishayahu-Yehuda (Joshua) Katz, killed on October 15, 1973. He was twenty-four.
1. “ ‘A chaplain appeared on the roadside distributing copies of the Psalms…’ ” From Abraham Rabinovich’s The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East, 2004, page 364.
The precise date of Yaffa Yarkoni’s concert on the other side of the canal is not clear. But Patzi—who seemed to have an ironclad memory for dates and places—put it on October 18 or 19.
One mysterious detail about the Egyptian Sukhoi pilot in the photograph is that he’s not wearing a flight suit. According to Isaac, some have suggested over the years that the prisoner was in fact an Egyptian artillery or air force spotter who was captured around the same time. But Isaac, as well as Shlomi Gruner, believe that this was the pilot, and he appears in the series of photographs that Isaac shot beginning with Yarkoni singing and ending with the destroyed aircraft.
1. “ ‘All across the battlefield other fathers were losing sons…’ ” From Warrior: An Autobiography, by Ariel Sharon with David Chanoff (1989).
2. “ ‘I don’t really have any desire to shoot anyone’s face off…’ ” Leonard Cohen speaking to Biba Kopf of New Musical Express, March 2, 1985. From The Ultimate Music Guide: Leonard Cohen.
CHAPTER 20: BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS
Cohen claimed to have written “Lover Lover Lover” for “the Egyptians and the Israelis,” in that order, in a 1976 performance in France: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0k5vpsWb4g.
Yakovi Doron’s famous photograph appears here with his permission. I interviewed him at Kibbutz Yifat on February 20, 2020.
Eli Kraus’s memories of the scene are from an interview with him on January 3, 2021. He lives on Kibbutz Sa’ad. I’m grateful to Shaul Ginsberg, Kraus’s friend and my wife’s uncle, for identifying Kraus in the photograph. The graveyard he mentioned was near Kibbutz Be’eri.
1. “ ‘I am introduced to a great general, “The Lion of the Desert.”…’ ” This quote, which does not appear in the version of Cohen’s manuscript that I have, appears in Ira Nadel’s Various Positions.
CHAPTER 21: RADAR STATION 528, SHARM EL-SHEIKH
From my interviews with Ruti Porper, Pnina Biran, and Orly Barkan, and from the postcards and diaries of Ruti Porper.
1. “ ‘I don’t have much to write….’ ” Postcard from Ruti Porper to her parents, October 10, 1973.
2. “ ‘…next to my office is the huge tail of a MiG-17.’ ” Postcard from Ruti Porper to her parents, October 20, 1973.
CHAPTER 22: BATHSHEBA
The naval officer Motti is Motti Kaganovich of Kibbutz Afikim, interviewed on February 14, 2020.
The navy crewman Herzl is Pvt. Herzl Elmalem, killed on October 7, 1973. He was eighteen.
The naval officer Roni is Roni Mor of Nahariya, interviewed on December 15, 2019. I’m grateful to Chuck Feingold for sending me the photo of Mor with Cohen aboard the Bathsheba, which led me to the stories of the navy personnel at Sharm el-Sheikh.
The naval officer Yoram is Yoram Dvir. His fiancée (now wife) is Yoki Dvir. I interviewed them together on March 19, 2020. Photographs of their wedding appear here with their permission.
CHAPTER 23: LET IT BE
The song known universally as “Send Underpants and Undershirts” is officially called “You Have No Reason to Worry,” words by Thelma Eligon-Rose, melody by Kobi Oshrat, recorded 1974.
1. “…killed the accordion…” For this insight I’m grateful to the journalist and scholar Yossi Klein Halevi.
2. “ ‘He said, “I won’t let you waste this song on a foreign melody—this is a Jewish war, so give it a Jewish tune.” ’ ” Naomi Shemer quoting her husband, Mordechai Horowitz, in “The Story Behind ‘Lu Yehi,’ ” Ynet, June 26, 2004 (Hebrew).
The event at Kibbutz Giv’at Haim is described by the historian Motti Zeira in his 2017 Hebrew biography of Shemer, The Honey and the Sting. The quote from Shemer’s son, Ariel Horowitz (“This song gave people the chance…”), is from “The song that became a prayer,” by Nadav Shragai, Yisrael Hayom, September 28, 2017 (Hebrew).
The anecdote about Dado hearing “Lu Yehi” is from his biographer, Hanoch Bartov, cited in Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War.
1. “Cohen sent a postcard to his sister with Dado’s craggy features…” In the archive of the Leonard Cohen estate, Los Angeles.
2. “ ‘I took my guitar with me to Africa…’ ” Meir Ariel in an interview with Smadar Shir in 1979, cited in A Biography of Meir Ariel, by Nissim Calderon with Oded Zehavi, 2016 (Hebrew). I’m grateful to Nissim for his help in an email correspondence and conversation in August 2020.
3. “…‘frontal pictures’…‘High Explosive Cocktail’…” From a Meir Ariel monologue before a performance of “Our Forces in Sinai Had a Quiet Night” (Hebrew, 1996): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx_TsjQG3Fk.
4. “Ariel was seen dragging his rifle on the ground…” From Calderon, A Biography of Meir Ariel.
Jacob El Hanani’s recollections are from an interview at his studio in New York on November 12, 2019.
The soldier Yehuda is Pvt. Yehuda Komemi, who died on December 12, 1973. He was eighteen.
1. “ ‘As soon as the politicians are in the picture, I’m out….’ ” From Rona Kuperboim’s 2009 article in Yediot Ahronot.
2. “ ‘I remember a surrealistic image….’ ” From Matti Caspi’s official website (Hebrew).
CHAPTER 24: WAR IS A DREAM
Meir Micha is the owner of the legendary Jerusalem hummus joint Pinati. I interviewed him on November 27, 2019. I’m grateful to Gideon Zelermyer, cantor of Sha’ar Hashomayim in Montreal, for the tip that Meir saw Cohen in 1973.
1. “ ‘Leonard spoke about his most private experiences but never about his public ones…’ ” I interviewed Leon Wieseltier on March 19 and 22, 2020.
Cohen’s interview with Robin Pike of the U.K. music magazine ZigZag was published on September 15, 1974. Reprinted in Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 62.
Cohen’s interview with Jordi Sierra i Fabra in October 1974 was reprinted in Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen, page 79.
1. “ ‘You seemed to have been drawn to violence….’ ” I’m grateful to Leonard Cohen’s biographer Sylvie Simmons for sending me the transcript of the exchange between them and allowing me to publish it.
CHAPTER 25: WHO BY FIRE
The notebook in which the text of “Who by Fire” appears is preserved in the archive of the Leonard Cohen estate in Los Angeles (catalog number 7-45).
The account of how Unetaneh Tokef was written on Kibbutz Beit Hashita is based on an article I wrote for the Times of Israel on September 25, 2012 (“A Yom Kippur melody spun from grief, atonement, and memory”).
1. “ ‘…a black cloud.’ ” From my 2012 interview with Hanoch Albalak, the kibbutz member who first performed the song. Albalak died in July 2019.
2. “ ‘A few days after the war ended, rumours started flying around the unit….’ ” Amichai Yarchi speaking shortly after the war in footage used in Unetaneh Tokef, a 1991 Channel 1 documentary about Yom Kippur on Kibbutz Beit Hashita (Hebrew).
3. “ ‘…something personal, something of himself…’ Yair read it and knew this was what he was looking for….’ ” Kibbutz member Michal Shalev, writing in a booklet published by the kibbutz in 1998, two years after the composer’s death (Hebrew).
CHAPTER 26: A BLESSING
Details of Robert Kory’s meeting with Cohen at the poet’s home in Hancock Park, and of the machinations behind the scenes of the last Tel Aviv concert, are from conversations with Robert, Cohen’s friend, manager, and executor of his estate. I’m grateful to Robert for the many hours he devoted to helping me get the story right.
1. “ ‘When they told me I was a Cohen, I believed it….’ ” Leonard Cohen speaking in 1994 to Arthur Kurzweil of the Jewish Review of Books, cited in Simmons, I’m Your Man.