Education
Raised in New York, Prusher graduated from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1993. She now lives in Jerusalem with her husband and two children.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Ilene Prusher
Edit ProfileCareer
Prusher started her career as a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Later, she freelanced from the Middle East for Newsday, The New Republic, The Financial Times, The Guardian, and The Observer (United Kingdom). Her book reviews and essays were published in The Washington Post, Haaretz Books, Moment, Habitus, Zeek and Tikkun.
Prusher was a staff writer for The Christian Science Monitor from 2000 to 2010, serving as the Boston-based newspaper’s bureau chief in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Jerusalem and covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2011-2012 she was the deputy editor of the Jerusalem Report. She is now on the editorial staff of Haaretz, where she writes a blog called Jerusalem Vivendi.
She also teaches Reporting Conflict for New York University-Tel Aviv, runs creative writing workshops, and writes Primigravida, a blog about motherhood. As part of her coverage of the major stories of the past decade in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel/Palestine, Prusher has been interviewed on Cable News Network, Microsoft and National Broadcasting Company, Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, and National Public Radio. Her coverage of First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Qaeda’s escape from the American military in Afghanistan was cited in the 9/11 anniversary issue of The New Yorker.
An excerpt of her novel was read on the British Broadcasting Corporation"s World Service “Weekend” Program in November 2012, and she was featured on the “Woman"s Hour” program of British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 4.
She now hosts a weekly radio show on TLV1 Radio, Weekend Edition. Prusher was a guest on Cable News Network"s "Foreign Correspondents with Christiane Amanpour", news programs on Microsoft and National Broadcasting Company, Fox News, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network"s Washington Journal. Prusher’s in-depth coverage of the First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Qaeda leadership"s escape from Afghanistan was cited in The New Yorker.
Prusher has frequently been interviewed on Middle East issues on National Public Radio and National Public Radio-affiliate stations.
Prusher was also featured in an International Women"s Media Foundation study: "Women Who Cover War.".
Achievements
-
In 2005, Prusher was nominated by Christian Science Monitor for a Pulitzer Prize for "What"s a Kidney Worth," an investigative story on organ trafficking. In December 2005, she won the Christian Science Monitor Award of Excellence for coverage of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza. In 1998 she won the United Nations Correspondents Association (United Nations Correspondents Association, New York) Award for reporting on a United Nations Agency. Magazine stories on post-war Somalia. In 1992-1993 she won the Joseph Levy Scholarship for Middle East reporting at Columbia University.
