Blowback

Not everyone's happy about Gregory Levey's memoir, Shut Up I'm Talking, about working for the Israeli Mission to the U.N. (I wrote about it before.)

The Jewish Week News reports:

Ben Harris, Levy’s predecessor and now a reporter for JTA, writes in a book review: “It’s not hard to read Levey’s memoir as a colossal act of betrayal.”

Harris writes that Levey portrays Israel’s diplomatic efforts as “ferociously inept and staffed by such insipid characters that no one should ever wonder why Israel seems incapable of convincing the world of the basic justice of its cause.”

But Levey defends his book, saying it was a “humorous take” about his experiences.

“I was just trying to bring light and humor to a situation that too often is taken too seriously,” he said. “It’s my own personal story and all I meant to do was to entertain. Everything in the book is true. Every incident is true, at least as I remember it. None of this should be taken negatively at all.”

An Internship Gets Out of Hand

Gregory Levey gets in over his head as an intern for the Israeli Consulate at the United Nations:

On an excruciatingly slow August day in New York City, a resolution was coming up for consideration, apparently, at the U.N. General Assembly. ... "You should go," one of my superiors said to me. "It won't be a big deal. Just take notes." ... I went to the meeting hall and took my seat at Israel's place... Although I didn't recognize him, the Italian representative greeted me and shook my hand. Then he leaned in and said, "So you know, the vote is definitely going to happen today after all."

Check out what happens next...

His book (the above is from a Salon excerpt) defintely looks like an interesting read.