The Match That Lit the Flame: Hannah Senesh and the Creation of Modern Israel (with Matti Friedman)

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We'd love to hear from you. Today is January 18th, 2026, and my guest is journalist and author Mati Friedman. This is Monty's fourth appearance on the program. He was last here in December of 2024 talking about Israel's war with Hezbollah and his book Pumpkin Flowers. Our topic for today is his latest book, Out of the Sky, Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe, which is the strange tale of a group of Jews living in Palestine under the British mandate during the Second World War, who parachuted back into Nazi occupied Europe.

And the most famous member of this group was a woman, Hannah or Hannah Senish, a name some of you may know. Mati, welcome back to Econ Talk. Thank you so much for having me. Now, Hanna is famous in Israel, uh, I, and I want And I knew of her before uh I moved here as a an American Jew, I knew about her before I moved to Israel.

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