birth_date: 0001-01-20 00:00:00
avg_rating: 4.13
name: Orit Arfa
about: Orit Arfa is an author, journalist, painter, songwriter, video producer, political commentator, and media personality.A native of Los Angeles, Orit's works are informed by the ethical dialectic that flows from her Jewish learning and tradition. Her father was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany to Auschwitz survivors, while her mother was born in Iraq on the eve of the mass Iraqi Jewish emigration to Israel in the wake of antisemitic pogroms. Orit led a free Jewish life in America, having attended modern Orthodox schools, but the soul of a free spirit led her to leave the Orthodox nest and tailor-make her educational journey.While most of her peers were either bar hopping or learning Torah, Orit went college-hopping in search of "Th Orit Arfa is an author, journalist, painter, songwriter, video producer, political commentator, and media personality.A native of Los Angeles, Orit's works are informed by the ethical dialectic that flows from her Jewish learning and tradition. Her father was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany to Auschwitz survivors, while her mother was born in Iraq on the eve of the mass Iraqi Jewish emigration to Israel in the wake of antisemitic pogroms. Orit led a free Jewish life in America, having attended modern Orthodox schools, but the soul of a free spirit led her to leave the Orthodox nest and tailor-make her educational journey.While most of her peers were either bar hopping or learning Torah, Orit went college-hopping in search of "The Truth." After stints at Columbia University, Stern College for Women, Bar Ilan University, and UCLA, she graduated with a BA in Jewish studies and a minor in journalism from American Jewish University, where she also served as editor of the student newspaper.While at Stern College, she interned at the Jewish daily Forward. Her profile of renowned Israeli mentalist Uri Geller got noticed by The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, for whom she has been writing ever since.She moved to Israel in 1999 and continued to write about politics, society, lifestyle and travel for a variety of publications, most notably The Jerusalem Post. To catch-up on the bar-hopping she missed in college, she pioneered the nightlife section of The Jerusalem Post. But she also left room for some Torah. In 2003 she completed her MA in Bible and Jewish Thought at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies (where she managed to finally uncover "The Truth").Her experience covering the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 had a profound impact on Orit's view of Israel and Zionism. It was then that she began to develop her novel, The Settler.She currently lives in Berlin where she has completed her second novel, Underskin. ...more