The Life In Israel of the Journalist Who Was Beheaded Journalist Steven Sotloff moved his life here in 2005. He studied administration, played rugby, and spent a lot of time with friends. In between he traveled around Arab world. I am no longer a journalist, he said to his friends, I am going on a crazy journey. Sep 03, 2014, 03:42PM | Gal Cohen Tell a Friend Sotloff in Jerusalem Sotloff in Jerusalem Channel 2 News Tours in Jerusalem, return to his apartment in Tel Aviv, rugby games with friends: Steven Sotloff came to Israel in the summer of 2005 and began studying administration at IDC Herzliya, but he did not make Aliyah officially. He was a brave man, attest his relatives, who had gone on long trips and came back with stories that left people in awe. Yesterday, ISIS released a video of the execution of Sotloff, 31, who disappeared in August 2013 at the border between Turkey and Syria. Sotloff, grandson of Holocaust survivors living in Florida, grew up in Miami and received a Jewish education. He came to Israel in 2005 after graduating from the University of Central Florida in the United States, where he studied communications and played rugby. Immediately after landing here he began looking for a team to play on and soon he became involved with a rugby team in Raanana, in which he never got a chance to play. He did not finish out the season due to pains. He was Israeli in every sense, and lived in the country for several years, but in 2008 he embarked on his journeys in the Arab countries, and in the summer of 2013 he returned to Israel to watch the Maccabiah Games. He told his friends he started working as a journalist, even though he worked as a freelancer and was not committed to any specific media source. Today it was released that Sotlof was an Israeli citizen, a fact he kept secret because he used to cover the combat zones in the Middle East. Sotloff Sotloff Channel 2 News In his work as a freelance journalist covering the Middle East, Steven spent time in countries such as Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Libya, and Bahrain. His articles and essays have been published in various news sources including Time, The National Interest, Media Line, and Foreign Policy. Im just going, entering a crazy journey and then I’ll try to sell my story, he told his friends who he kept in touch with via Facebook. I am not like other journalists- I have no domain. In July 2013, he told his friend Mike Speer, as they drank a beer, what had happened to him during his travels. Almost every story nearly ended in death. And then - sometime about a year ago, he disappeared from his friends and from Israel. A few months later it became clear that he was kidnapped in Syria. I suddenly lost all communication with him, I wrote him good luck and he did not answer, says Speer. And then his profile disappeared, I did not know what had happened, I realized that he was out for another adventure, he did not answer me.” Sotloff in Tel Aviv Sotloff in Tel Aviv Channel 2 News/Dancing Camel Facebook Page No one knows exactly what happened to him, but his friends who saw the pictures did not want to imagine what happened. As soon as I heard about it I did not dare to watch the video, said one of his friends. Every time he was close to death, and now it actually happened – it is just a disaster. Two years ago, when he came to Israel and was Couchsurfing, which allows people to stay in other people’s homes without paying, he came to the home of Abigail (32) Tel Aviv and stayed there a week. One day they went to her parents home in Jerusalem for dinner. Both she and her mother talked about a special person, brave, who does not fear anything and would do anything to reach the most dangerous places. Channel 2 News He was well aware of the risks involved in his work and the places where he comes from, said Abigail. He had a sense of mission, he loved it and lived for it. Her mother, who also met the journalist, said she was amazed that he always entered the lions den. In one of those meetings, the journalist told of his experience in severe events during his days spent in Libya, Egypt and Syria. He had crazy stories, he photographed riots in Egypt and was almost lynched, he was hospitalized because of it for some time, said the host. In Syria he was also almost killed by stray bullets fired at him.” According to the Israeli who spent almost a week with him, she was horrified to discover that the man who appeared in the brutal beheading video, was the same nice young man who she was privileged to meet. He looks different, not like himself, she says. I watched the video just the beginning, as soon as I found out ISIS was holding him I knew he was a dead man, it was only a matter of time.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 18:44:12 +0000
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