Robert Rosenberg, 1952-2006

When his daily news summaries suddenly stopped a few weeks ago, I knew that something was up. I had come to rely upon Robert Rosenberg's amazing facility for summing up each day's important events in Israel's political scene, and for doing so every working day. I was happy to occasionally post – in whole or in part – his "Today's Situation" column. The last one I used was on August 18. The honors have been pouring in on this remarkable life, cut short from cancer at 54. – Ralph Seliger

From Eric Lee, a one-time American oleh and a friend of Meretz USA:

Back in 1996, I began writing a weekly blog (before there were such things...) called BibiWATCH. That was how I met Robert Rosenberg.

Robert had created one of the first websites devoted to peace in the Middle East – Ariga http://ariga.com/ – a year earlier, in 1995. He was a big fan of what I was doing to Netanyahu week after week, and the admiration was mutual....

Later, Robert would host BibiWATCH on [his] Ariga site – for free.

We got together, sipped espresso in an outdoor cafe in his beloved Tel-Aviv, spent a weekend shmoozing at my kibbutz Ein Dor, and stayed in touch pretty regularly until I moved to London in 1998....

Robert was a character. A former crime writer, he went on to write a number of crime novels based in Israel....

And from Ami Isseroff, who is engaged in a similar effort to Robert's:

.... In addition to his illustrious career as a journalist, Robert blazed the way for Israeli peace activism on the web with Ariga for peace,(http://www.ariga.com/peace). He was generous enough to host Web pages of other people and organizations, include that the PEACE group which preceded MidEastWeb (see PeaceWatch). Robert was a founding member of MidEastWeb for Coexistence, and Ariga was the major inspiration for MidEastWeb.

Almost to the end, Robert edited a daily news summary that reflected his genius at singling out the important events of the day, as well as his unique view of the Middle East.

In Haaretz, David Landau, currently editor in Chief of Haaretz and formerly editor of the Haaretz English edition wrote:

Many, many were the nights when without Robert this paper would not have come out. Or at any rate, that is how it most certainly seemed to us, his colleagues at Haaretz English Edition, as we squeaked past another after-midnight deadline with reams and reams of raw Haaretz copy all somehow translated, edited, page-set and sent to press.

His output was truly phenomenal. His capacity vast; his knowledge encyclopedic. Uncomplaining, with breathtaking speed, with unfailing good grace, he would wade through troughs of dense prose, written to fill whole pages of Hebrew newsprint, and emerge with a succinct, coherent story often capped with a cute or sardonic headline for good measure.

The man was a joy to have around. He was a relief to have around - because you knew that with him the inevitable nightly crises would somehow be resolved. He was often a headache to have around, because, while doing his speed-reading, speed-writing, speed headline-composing and speed-laying-out he would be treating all those within earshot to a cheery, incessant, unquenchable patter of opinion. Sometimes it was about the story in hand. But often it would be about something completely different – which made his expeditious progress on the text all the more amazing. He liked to have the television blaring in the background, too - usually about still another subject. Robert, who was a decade ahead of his time on the Internet, was the consummate multitasker before the rest of us had heard of the concept....

But above all, and at this moment of hesed shel emet when only the truth should be written, it is Robert Rosenberg's good-heartedness that deserves words of praise and admiration. For more than 30 years I would hear him criticizing the whole world. But I never heard him say a bad word to anyone....

Robert's pioneering work in Ariga were generally studiously and deliberately ignored by Israeli media and "big time" peace organizations, even by some whom he had helped along the way. His death is a great loss to the cause of peace, to Israel and to the Middle East, as well as a personal loss for me.

Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.