DANIEL, JEAN

DANIEL, JEAN (1920– ), French writer and journalist. Born in Blida (Algeria), Daniel grew up in Algeria where he completed graduate studies at the Algiers College of Humanities, going to Paris for postgraduate studies. After World War ii, he was briefly attached to the Prime Minister's Office, and then turned to journalism. For ten years he was on the editorial board of the influential French weekly L'Express, leaving it in 1964 to launch a new paper, Le Nouvel Observateur, which took a radical stand on the burning issue at the time, the war in Algeria. Outspoken on civil rights and minorities, while being often the first with the news, the Nouvel Observateur was considered the leading magazine in France in the 1980s and was widely read abroad. Daniel was chairman of the board from 1978. Speaking for the moderate left, he often appeared on television and radio panels. He wrote several books, among them L'Erreur (1953); Journal d'un journaliste (1959); the autobiographical Le Temps qui reste (1973); Le Refuge et la source (1977); and L'Ere des ruptures (1979). His 2003 book La Prison juive: humeurs et méditations d'un témoin (The Jewish Prison: A Rebellious Meditation on the State of Judaism, 2005) is equally critical of Palestinian suicide bombers and Israeli settlers, faulting the Israeli government for the continuing occupation and not doing enough to create a viable Palestinian state. His collected writings on the Middle East were published in La Guerre et la Paix: Israël-Palestine, Chroniques 1956–2003.

add. bibliography:

A. Schatz. "The Jewish Question," in: New York Review of Books, 52:14 (Sept. 22, 2005).

[Gideon Kouts]