Folio Literary Series with Yardena Schwartz - August 10, 2026

A Conversation with Journalist and Author Yardena Schwartz Award-winning journalist and author Yardena Schwartz joins us for an in-depth discussion of her book, Ghosts of a Holy War, a work of narrative nonfiction that investigates the enduring legacy of the 1929 Hebron Massacre and its haunting reverberations across the past century. Drawing on archival research and on-the-ground reporting, Schwartz illuminates one of the most consequential—and too often neglected—chapters in Israel's pre-state history, situating it as ground zero of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Tracing a direct line from the propaganda and incitement that preceded the 1929 massacre to the ideological and informational warfare of today, she reveals the central role of disinformation and religious mobilization in sustaining and escalating the conflict. In doing so, Schwartz challenges prevailing narratives and invites a deeper reckoning with how myth, memory, and manipulation have shaped a century of bloodshed—and what would be required to interrupt this tragic repetition of history. Yardena will be joined in conversation with Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor at Large, 70 Faces Media. About Yardena Schwartz: Yardena Schwartz is an award-winning journalist and Emmy-nominated producer who was based in Israel for a decade until 2023. Her reporting from four continents has appeared in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Review of Books, The Economist, TIME, National Geographic, and Foreign Policy. Yardena previously worked at NBC News and MSNBC. She graduated with honors from Columbia Journalism School in 2011, received an Emmy nomination for her work at MSNBC in 2013, and the Religion News Association award for excellence in magazine reporting in 2016. Ghosts of a Holy War is her first book.