As I perused – occasionally with wonder – the Israeli media’s plethora of analyses about the US as it celebrated 250 years of independence, I was thrust back decades to my NYC childhood. It was there, at the public school I attended, that I was instilled with what is truly important in America: the rights that citizens are guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Constitution, including freedom of speech and the press.

This historical fact has profound significance in the present for Israelis as well.  Having said that, it’s my impression that many of us have yet to internalize the lesson.

In comparison, the late Moshe Negbi was far from apathetic to the issue. That comes through clearly from the media expert’s monumental Hebrew-language book Freedom of the Journalist and Freedom of the Press: Media Law and Ethics, which I’m currently reading quite diligently. My hope is that his work will help me close knowledge gaps formed while I was too busy with other things during my four-decade career as a diplomat (which often included activities vis-a-vis the media – I’m fully aware of the........

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