On this episode of The Open Mind, we're delighted to welcome Julie Salamon, a perceptive critic, prolific author and riveting storyteller. Her newest book is “An Innocent Bystander: The killing of Leon Klinghoffer.” 

Daughter of Czech immigrants who were Holocaust survivors, Salamon was raised in Ohio, a rural village of 800 people where her father was a town doctor. A veteran of the New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, she has covered business, philanthropy, and the arts. 

“’An Innocent Bystander’ recounts the harrowing story of a hijacked voyage at sea, the terrorists and the family of the murder victim, an elderly American thrown overboard” The New York Daily News noted, “It explains how competing governments, complicated treaties and outright lies kept the four attackers, terrorists from ever facing American justice.”  And NPR added, “Klinghoffer’s death became a symbol for many of the costs and fears of terrorism.” Indeed, Salamon chronicles that episode and its successive chain reaction to illuminate the present Israeli Palestinian conflict and connected moral and geopolitical questions.”