For a decade, Israeli reporter Ori Nir cranked out many of the meatiest stories in the Middle East. The intifada. Israeli-Arab peace talks. The Persian Gulf War. Palestinian self-rule.
Nir, who snagged his first newspaper job in 1986 as Palestinian affairs reporter for the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz, worked up to 14 hours on some days and threw himself into volatile situations.
“Covering the intifada was by far the most exciting and challenging thing I’ve done professionally. It was somewhat comparable to being a war correspondent,” said the 36-year-old Jerusalem native, who wears his dark hair in a military-style buzzcut.
But his life took a sharp turn this summer when Nir moved to San Francisco with his American wife and fellow journalist, Mary Curtius, and their 4-year-old daughter Noa.
Curtius, a Los Angeles Times reporter, was offered a job covering stories in Northern California. And as part of a pact to advance both their careers, the family left Israel.
To accommodate Nir, Ha’aretz created a new position of U.S. West Coast correspondent. Working out of the family home, Nir is writing a weekly column called “In America” and other stories for the newspaper often dubbed the “New York Times of Israel.”
So far, he has covered the U.S. elections with such stories as Republican candidate Bob Dole’s California strategy, the phenomenon of soccer moms and a range of state ballot propositions nationwide.
But he is also musing on lighter topics like the American fascination with espresso bars, corn and golf. And he has focused on radical Jewish expression here, such as the S.F.-based Davka magazine and the “Too Jewish?” exhibit.
This winter, he will teach a journalism course at U.C. Berkeley.
Though Nir and his family expect to stay here only for a few years, the change is still a shock for Nir.
“It’s a sobering experience. I’m not on the front page anymore,” said Nir, relaxing in their spacious flat on a quiet street not far from Congregation Emanu-El. “I was the boss on Palestinian affairs.”
But the shift has its advantages too.
“It’s really fun. The writing itself is more fun,” he said.
Nir’s start in journalism came in 1982 after his army duty. He began working as an assistant to the Middle East editor for Israeli television news.
Ha’aretz asked him to become its Palestinian affairs reporter in 1986. Then, sheer chance — and history — changed his life.
In December 1987, the Palestinian uprising began. And the world was watching.
“Suddenly I was carrying on my shoulders the biggest story in Israel,” he said.
Nir met Curtius in the West Bank a decade ago through now-New York Times reporter Joel Greenberg. She was covering the Mideast for the Christian Science Monitor and later the Boston Globe. In 1989 the couple married, and she converted to Judaism.
A year later they moved to Washington, D.C., where Nir became U.S. bureau chief for Ha’aretz, and Curtius covered the State Department for the Boston Globe. In 1994, they returned to Israel, where he became Ha’aretz’s Palestinian affairs reporter again and she worked in the Los Angeles Times bureau.
Nir’s political views were shaped in part by his Mideast coverage.
In the months before the intifada, he recalled, he and a Palestinian-Canadian reporter were driving past a university demonstration in Gaza when someone threw a basketball-sized stone at his windshield. The glass shattered, but neither got hurt.
To show they weren’t adversaries, Nir held up a press sign in Arabic and his friend waved a kaffiyeh. Soon after, Israeli soldiers stationed nearby came over and asked the pair for their identity cards.
“They left me alone and arrested my friend,” Nir said.
The incident, and others like it, changed him.
“It made me understand how Palestinians feel, how harassed they are and how humiliated they can feel.”
Some Israelis viewed his empathy toward Palestinians as less than patriotic. Like other Israeli journalists, Nir questioned his allegiances, especially when military officials would ask him not to publish or to emphasize certain information.
“I felt I was walking a thin line between my journalistic commitment to the truth and my identity as an Israeli patriot Zionist.”
Nir eventually decided his pursuit of the truth did not contradict his vision of Israeli democracy.
Such conflicts are somewhat distant now that Nir is writing from the West Coast.
And he admits working 10- to 14-hour days in the territories year after year took a toll both physically and psychologically. “You see a lot of blood and a lot of evil.”
Nir realized he had begun to change this fall when Palestinians rioted in response to Israel’s opening a second entrance to an ancient, underground tunnel in Jerusalem.
For the first time, Nir didn’t ache to cover the “big story.”
“I didn’t really regret missing it,” he said.