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Tom Gross

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Tom Gross
Tom Gross (right) interviews Egyptian dissident and former political prisoner Maikel Nabil at the 2012 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy
Tom Gross (right) interviews Egyptian dissident and former political prisoner Maikel Nabil at the 2012 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy
BornLondon, England, United Kingdom
OccupationJournalist and commentator
LanguageEnglish
Alma materWadham College, Oxford University
Parents
Relatives

Tom Gross is a British-born journalist, international affairs commentator,[2] and human rights campaigner specializing in the Middle East.[3] Gross was formerly a foreign correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and New York Daily News. He now works as an opinion journalist and has written for both Arab[4][5] and Israeli[6] newspapers, as well as European and American ones, both liberal[7] and conservative.[8] He also appears as a commentator on the BBC in English,[9] BBC Arabic,[10] and various Middle Eastern and other networks.[11][12]

His politics are mixed. The German newspaper Die Welt described Gross as "A liberal in the fight against left-wing liberal hypocrisy".[13] In a profile of Gross in the Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat in 2019, it was noted that he started as a non-political entertainment and feature journalist before becoming a political commentator.[14][15]

Long involved in discreet behind-the-scenes bridge-building meetings between officials and activists from Israel and nations throughout the Arab world,[16] Gross was the first journalist sympathetic to Israel to be favorably profiled in a Saudi newspaper, at a time when Saudi outreach to Israel was in its infancy.[17]

Gross has also been interviewed by Israeli newspapers including Haaretz[18] and by Iranian opposition media. His call for good relations between Israelis, Jews and (anti-regime) Iranians was viewed on Instagram in Iran more than 2.4 million times the day after the Iranian regime fired 350 missiles and drones at Israel in April 2024.[19]

In 2014, former Pentagon official Michael Rubin wrote that "Tom Gross is probably Europe’s leading observer of the Middle East".[20] Gross was similarly described in Toronto's National Post in April 2019.[21]

Education and family

[edit]

Gross was educated at Wadham College at Oxford University,[22] where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE). His father, John Gross, was a distinguished author and critic,[23][24] and his mother, Miriam Gross, and sister, Susanna Gross, are literary editors. His step-father Sir Geoffrey Owen was editor of the Financial Times. His brother-in-law is the novelist and author John Preston. His uncle was Tony Gross, a pioneering fashion optician.[25][26][27] He has a daughter, Sivan.

Gross's maternal grandfather, Kurt May, was a German-Jewish lawyer who fled Nazi persecution to Jerusalem, where Gross's mother was born.[28] May later led the legal battle of The United Restitution Organization, which fought to attain restitution from German companies for persecuted Jews, Roma and others, after World War II. May was also a senior advisor to the U.S. chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crime trials.[29] Gross's maternal grandmother, Vera Feinberg, also escaped Nazi Germany for pre-state Israel, but her parents were deported to Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp and later to Treblinka where they were gassed to death upon arrival.[30][31][32]

Gross has also cited the strong influence during his childhood of his godmother,[33] Sonia Orwell, widow of the writer George Orwell and the model[34] for Orwell's heroine Julia in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Gross wrote in The Spectator magazine that Sonia had no children of her own, and "she became almost like a second mother to me".[35]

Gross discussed his upbringing growing up surrounded by cultural and literary luminaries in London and New York, as well as his later career and work with Roma and human rights, in an interview in 2020.[36]

Journalistic career

[edit]

Gross was formerly the Jerusalem correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and for the New York Daily News. He has been a contributor to The Wall Street Journal,[37] Weekly Standard,[38] National Review[39] and Huffington Post in the United States, to The National Post[40] in Canada, to The Australian[41] in Australia, for the Saudi paper Asharq Al-Awsat[42][43] and to The Times of India.

In Britain, he has written for The Guardian,[44] Daily Telegraph,[45] Spectator,[46] Standpoint, Evening Standard, and other publications; in Israel, for Haaretz, Maariv and The Jerusalem Post; in Germany for Die Welt;[47] and in Iran, for a number of opposition websites.[48]

In a series titled “Conversations with friends about their lives,” Gross has interviewed pianist Evgeny Kissin,[49] lawyer Alan Dershowitz,[50] filmmaker Hossein Amini,[51] New York Times columnist Bret Stephens,[52] Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland,[53] writers David Pryce-Jones,[54] John O'Sullivan,[55] Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff[56] and others.[57]

Human rights activism

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He has criticized the UN for not doing more to promote freedom in countries such as North Korea[58] and Mauritania.[59] He has also conducted various on stage interviews, including with a French hostage kidnapped by Islamic State[60] in Syria, a Nigerian schoolgirl kidnapped by Boko Haram[61] in Nigeria, and with the wife of the imprisoned Saudi liberal blogger and political prisoner Raif Badawi.[62]

Gross has advocated for the rights of the Roma,[63][64] Domari, Kurdish,[65] Yazidi[66] and Rohingya[67] minorities, and disabled people.[68]

Media criticism

[edit]

Much of his work has concerned the way the international media covers the Middle East. He has been cited on the subject in papers such as The New York Times[69] and interviewed in Haaretz[70] and on television[71] about this. He has been critical of the BBC, arguing that their Middle East coverage is often slanted against Israel,[72][73] and has subjected the coverage of Reuters,[74] The Guardian[75] and CNN[76] and what he termed the "cult of Rachel Corrie”[77] to scrutiny.

He has also been critical of The New York Times, both for their general foreign coverage,[78] and historically for what he terms their "lamentable record of not covering the Holocaust."[79]

Israel-Palestine

[edit]

Gross has consistently supported the creation of an independent Palestinian Arab state alongside Israel.[80][81][82] Gross, however, has stated that "to be viable and successful it is not only a question of what Israel will give the Palestinians, but of the Palestinians themselves engaging in good governance." He warned that "there is no point in creating a new Palestinian state if it will primarily be used as a launching ground for armed attacks on Israel, which would be likely to in turn only lead to a much bloodier war between Israelis and Palestinians than anything we have witnessed in the past".[83]

Gross has also written about the Jews of the Arab world, specifically about the forced removal of Jews from Arab countries.[84]

Prague

[edit]

Gross has also lived and worked in Prague, where he served as correspondent (covering the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Albania) for the (London) Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. He helped launch the Czech edition of Elle magazine, the first international glossy magazine in post-communist central and eastern Europe.[85] In addition, he wrote a regular op-ed column for The Prague Post and op-eds for the Czech daily Lidové Noviny. He has acted as a consultant to the Prague Jewish museum.[86] In The Guardian Gross has been critical of the fact that Prague still has no central state-funded Holocaust memorial, unlike most other European capital cities from which Jews were deported.[87]

Work on Roma

[edit]

Tom Gross has also campaigned on behalf of the Romani people. "This is one of the most painful and disturbing problems in Europe today, though it is often neglected or misreported by the mainstream media", he wrote.[88][89][90]

For two years, based in Prague, he served as a special advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the plight of Czech Roma, mainly relating to citizenship issues arising as a result of the breakup of Czechoslovakia. He criticized the internationally renowned liberal icon and playwright Václav Havel, in columns in The Spectator and The Prague Post,[91] for not doing enough to help Roma while he served as Czech president.

Television and radio

[edit]

Tom Gross has worked on a number of television programs and documentary films, including BBC TV specials on Czech Roma, and on Sudeten Germans. On the Middle East, he has appeared as a commentator on BBC World news,[92] CNN, Fox News, and NPR. He has been interviewed on international politics on Sky News Arabia,[93] i24 News,[94] Russia Today,[95] TRT World Turkey,[96] Israel Channel 13[97] and BBC Arabic.[98]

Books

[edit]

Gross is co-author of Out of Tune: David Helfgott and the Myth of Shine (Warner Books, New York, 1998) and of The Time Out Guide to Prague (Penguin Books, London, 1995). Out of Tune was named the most important biography of a troubled genius by The Huffington Post in April 2011.[99]

Public service

[edit]

Gross is a voluntary director of the Raif Badawi Foundation[100] named after the imprisoned Saudi liberal dissident, and a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor,[101] of Mideast Dig[102] and of Keren Malki, a charity helping special needs children in Israel.[103] He is a founding signatory to The Henry Jackson Society's Statement of Principles in London.[104]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Johnson, Daniel (5 October 2012). "Last and best of the great literary editors". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  2. ^ "Palestine's Missing Critics". The Wall Street Journal. 2 November 2009. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  3. ^ "Ein Linker im Kampf gegen linke Lebenslügen, By Alan Posener". Die Welt. 17 September 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
  4. ^ Tom Gross (4 September 2019). "Brexit and its Effect on the Middle East". Asharq Al-Awsat (English). Retrieved 7 September 2019.
  5. ^ Tom Gross (4 September 2019). "جنون "بريكست" وأثره على الشرق الأوسط". Asharq Al-Awsat (Arabic). Retrieved 7 September 2019.
  6. ^ "The 'shy little bird' who survived Hitler and Stalin". The Jerusalem Post. 22 December 2010. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  7. ^ Tom Gross (30 November 2014). "A modest proposal: Qatar could win by letting Gaza host the World Cup". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  8. ^ Tom Gross (2 December 2008). "If this Isn't Terrorism, What Is?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  9. ^ "Israel & Arab states bypass Palestinians to make peace: BBC Lyse Doucet interviews Tom Gross, 8 April 2019". YouTube. 8 April 2019.
  10. ^ "Third Israeli elections within a year? Tom Gross on BBC Arabic". YouTube. 8 December 2019. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  11. ^ "The Queen embraced Assad, but now finally Israel gets a royal visit". YouTube. 2 March 2018. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  12. ^ "Tom Gross on Sky News Arabia on Britain's Brexit vote". YouTube. 6 June 2016.
  13. ^ "Ein Linker im Kampf gegen linke Lebenslügen, By Alan Posener". Die Welt. 17 September 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
  14. ^ Raneem Hannoush (16 December 2019). "توم غروس: دور الصحافي نقل الحدث لكن أصبحت للحقيقة أكثر من صورة اليوم". Asharq Al-Awsat (Arabic). Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  15. ^ Raneem Hannoush (22 January 2020). "Tom Gross: Role of the Journalist Is to Report Events, but Some Media Have Now Gone Beyond That". Asharq Al-Awsat (English). Retrieved 2 February 2020.
  16. ^ Jonathan Sacerdoti (7 January 2022). "Meet the Arab Zionists: a new generation of online pioneers". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  17. ^ Raneem Hannoush (16 December 2019). "توم غروس: دور الصحافي نقل الحدث لكن أصبحت للحقيقة أكثر من صورة اليوم". Asharq Al-Awsat (Arabic). Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  18. ^ "'I've met waiters in Tel Aviv who have a better command of English than some Israeli diplomats'. Israel is under the spotlight as never before, yet its government has failed to respond with an effective public diplomacy campaign, according to British journalist and analyst Tom Gross". Haaretz. 12 May 2024. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  19. ^ "Interview with Tom Gross, ManotoTV". ManotoTV. 14 April 2024. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  20. ^ "Why Is the State Department Supporting a Jewish Conspiracy Book Fair?". Commentary. 5 May 2014. Retrieved 8 May 2014.
  21. ^ "Why the Arabs are ready for peace with Israel, By Robert Fulford". The National Post. 18 April 2019. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  22. ^ "Ein Linker im Kampf gegen linke Lebenslügen, By Alan Posener". Die Welt. 17 September 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
  23. ^ "Obituary of John Gross". The Economist. 27 January 2011.
  24. ^ "My Hero: John Gross". The Guardian. 15 January 2011.
  25. ^ "Tony Gross: British optician and designer who made sunglasses a celebrity necessity and constructed outlandish spectacles for Elton John". The Times. 14 March 2018.
  26. ^ "Tony Gross, Tony Gross, optician who introduced glamour into eyewear and attracted a host of celebrity clients". The Guardian. 28 March 2018.
  27. ^ "Tony Gross, designer of fashionable glasses – obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 11 March 2018.
  28. ^ "A Jerusalem Childhood - Standpoint". www.standpointmag.co.uk.
  29. ^ Ferencz, Benjamin B. Less than Slaves. 2002, page 40-1
  30. ^ Tait, Robert (11 October 2016). "Fate of former Schindler's list factory is met with Czech ambivalence". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  31. ^ (www.nux.cz), Nux s.r.o. "Adolf Feinberg | Databáze obětí | Holocaust". www.holocaust.cz (in Czech). Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  32. ^ (www.nux.cz), Nux s.r.o. "Pauline Feinberg | Databáze obětí | Holocaust". www.holocaust.cz (in Czech). Retrieved 5 August 2018.
  33. ^ The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: Volume 1: An Age Like This, 1920-1940 Edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (reissued June 2019)
  34. ^ "Dedicated follower of passions". The Guardian. 19 May 2002.
  35. ^ Spurling, Hilary. The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell. p131. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 9780241141656|2002|
  36. ^ "An interview with Tom Gross about his life". YouTube. 28 June 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  37. ^ Tom Gross (2 December 2008). "If this Isn't Terrorism, What Is?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  38. ^ "Tom Gross Archive". Weekly Standard. Archived from the original on 4 January 2012. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  39. ^ "Tom Gross Archive". National Review Online. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  40. ^ "Tom Gross archive". National Post. Retrieved 1 May 2023.
  41. ^ Tom Gross (8 April 2011). "West needs reality check on Syria". The Australian. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  42. ^ Tom Gross (4 September 2019). "Brexit and its Effect on the Middle East". Asharq Al-Awsat (English). Retrieved 7 September 2019.
  43. ^ Tom Gross (4 September 2019). "جنون "بريكست" وأثره على الشرق الأوسط". Asharq Al-Awsat (Arabic). Retrieved 7 September 2019.
  44. ^ Tom Gross (7 December 2009). "Building peace without Obama's interference". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  45. ^ Tom Gross (16 January 2018). "When a French ambassador described Israel as a 'sh---y little country' – and polite society defended him". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  46. ^ "Tom Gross archive". The Spectator. 16 February 2018. Archived from the original on 29 January 2018. Retrieved 16 February 2018.
  47. ^ Tom Gross (1 August 2019). "Ich will Deutscher werden, aber es ist so verdammt schwer". Die Welt. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
  48. ^ البرزی, آرش (11 December 2009). "تام گراس: جنبش سبز در به کارگیری اینترنت الهام‌بخش بوده است". رادیو فردا.
  49. ^ "Conversations with friends about their lives: Pianist Evgeny Kissin". YouTube. 24 May 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  50. ^ "Conversations with friends: Alan Dershowitz on his life, career and the state of America". YouTube. 19 November 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  51. ^ "Conversations with friends about their lives: Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hossein Amini". YouTube. 30 May 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  52. ^ "Conversations with friends: New York Times columnist Bret Stephens". YouTube. 20 October 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  53. ^ "Conversations with friends about their lives: Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland". YouTube. 20 June 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  54. ^ "Conversations with friends about their lives: David Pryce-Jones". YouTube. 21 May 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  55. ^ "Conversations with friends about their lives: John O'Sullivan". YouTube. 29 May 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  56. ^ "Conversations with friends about their lives: The last Nazi-hunter Efraim Zuroff". YouTube. 8 June 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  57. ^ "Conversations with friends: Journalist Tom Gross talks with friends around the world about their lives".
  58. ^ “The true face of human rights at the UN,” March 16, 2012, The National Post
  59. ^ “The UN Promotes a Slave-Owning Nation,” Feb. 25, 2013, The Huffington Post
  60. ^ "I was held captive by ISIS" - Pierre Torres interviewed by Tom Gross". YouTube. 25 February 2015. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  61. ^ ""I escaped Boko Haram" – A Nigerian girl who was kidnapped with 270 others ("Bring Back Our Girls")". YouTube. 25 February 2015. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  62. ^ "Imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi's wife speaks out (interviewed by Tom Gross)". 2016 Geneva Summit for human rights. 26 February 2016. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  63. ^ "The Truth about Roma, a nation with no homeland". (London) Evening Standard. 20 October 1999. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  64. ^ "Obituary of Milena Hubschmannova, Czech champion of the Roma", The Guardian, 19 Sep 2005 [1]
  65. ^ "The West should support an independent Kurdish state". 15 October 2019. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
  66. ^ "Threats against Yazidis were predictable and predicted". Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  67. ^ "The Rohingya: Mass murder under the gaze of a Nobel peace laureate". Retrieved 9 December 2017.
  68. ^ “Is New Zealand really such a tolerant country?,” March 19, 2019, The Spectator
  69. ^ Flanigan, Jake (22 July 2014). "War and Media in the Gaza Strip". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  70. ^ Maor, Dafna (14 September 2014). "Why journalists say Israeli-Arab reporting is 'rigged'". The Marker. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  71. ^ "The Breakfast Show". 28 July 2014.
  72. ^ "Tom Gross on the BBC". www.tomgrossmedia.com.
  73. ^ "The BBC discovers 'terrorism,’ briefly: Suicide bombing seems different when closer to home", The Jerusalem Post, 12 July 2005 [2]
  74. ^ “The Case of Reuters,” The National Review
  75. ^ ""The Guardian acknowledges a degree of anti-Semitism," Nov. 10, 2011, The Commentator". Archived from the original on 13 December 2011. Retrieved 10 December 2011.
  76. ^ ""This is CNN," March 20, 2009, The National Review". Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 20 May 2009.
  77. ^ Tom Gross (22 October 2005). "The Forgotten Rachels". The Spectator. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  78. ^ "All The News That’s Fit To Print?” The National Review, 14 March 2003 [3]
  79. ^ "Reporting Auschwitz, Then & Now: The lamentable record of The New York Times", The Jerusalem Post, 2 February 2005 [4]
  80. ^ “ Could Donald Trump unexpectedly triumph in his bid for peace in the Middle East?,” The Spectator, 4 April 2019 [5]
  81. ^ Tom Gross (9 February 2018). "After Jerusalem decision, might Trump & Netanyahu yet help create a Palestinian state?". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
  82. ^ "The good news about Gaza you won't hear on the BBC". Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  83. ^ "A nice new shopping mall opened today in Gaza: Will the media report on it?” [6]
  84. ^ "The Jews driven out of homes in Arab lands". Retrieved 9 December 2017.
  85. ^ Alison Veness (18 February 1994). "'Elle' breaks ground with edition in Czech". The Independent. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
  86. ^ Levy, Gideon (20 April 2014). "Echoes from a lost world". Haaretz. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
  87. ^ Tait, Robert (11 October 2016). "Fate of former Schindler's list factory is met with Czech ambivalence". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
  88. ^ "A Forgotten People, a Terrible Ordeal, ” The Wall Street Journal, 19 January 2000 [7]
  89. ^ "Obituary of Milena Hubschmannova, Czech champion of the Roma", The Guardian, 19 Sep 2005 [8]
  90. ^ "The Truth about Roma, a nation with no homeland". (London) Evening Standard. 20 October 1999. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  91. ^ "On Czech citizenship law, the President has no clothes". The Prague post. 7 December 1994. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  92. ^ "Israel & Arab states bypass Palestinians to make peace: BBC Lyse Doucet interviews Tom Gross, 8 April 2019". YouTube. 8 April 2019.
  93. ^ "Tom Gross on Sky News Arabia on Britain's Brexit vote, London, 23.6.16". YouTube. 23 June 2016.
  94. ^ "The UK votes in its closest election in decades 07/05/2015". YouTube. 5 May 2015. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  95. ^ "Tom Gross interview with RT International, 8 May 2015". YouTube. 8 May 2015. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  96. ^ "Tom Gross on Boris Johnson, on the day he becomes British PM". YouTube. 24 July 2019. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  97. ^ "Tom Gross on international views of Israeli election results". YouTube. 19 September 2019. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  98. ^ "Tom Gross: Will Benny Gantz form an Israeli government?". YouTube. 23 October 2019. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021.
  99. ^ "Troubled Genius: 7 Biographies of Tortured, Game Changing Souls (PHOTOS) | HuffPost". Huffingtonpost.com. 11 June 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  100. ^ "The Board and Advisors - The Raif Badawi Foundation".
  101. ^ "Boards".
  102. ^ "Masthead - mideast dig".
  103. ^ "Keren Malki - Advisory Board". www.kerenmalki.org. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  104. ^ Henry Jackson Society signatories
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