Profile On Nada Bashir by Nada Goldfoot

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

                                          Nada Bashir

Here it is January 1st, 2026 and being a 91 year old early 5am riser, turned on my TV to CNN, the only working station at this hour, and lo and behold, saw a Nada speaking;  a reporter with her hair covered, by the name of Nada Bashir.  

                     Me, taken not too many years ago by my son
                                                

     Finding out about another Nada !!  Amazing !!!

My nickname since birth has always been Nada.  Only a few years ago did I learn that it is "nothing" in Spanish.  My mother really should have called me Nadia, give me a more Russian flair to my name.  Here at the Assisted Living quarters, I am known and write on my menu request, Nada. I am Jewish.  Nada Bashir is wearing a Hijab over her hair, telling me she is a Muslim. This is ironic to me.   So I am very curious about her:

Nada Bashir (born 17 December 1995) age 31, is a British journalist and international correspondent for CNN based in London. Her reporting focuses primarily on the Middle East, just as mine, an unknown neighborhood reporter, is also of the Middle East, particularly Israel.  In 2024, Bashir was featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list.

Bashir was born in Brighton, England to Libyan parents, her father an aircraft engineer and her mother a preschool teacher. The family later moved to West Kensington, London.

I note that she was editor of UCL's student newspaper. ( Yes, UCL stands for University College London, a major public research university located in the heart of London, England, known globally as a leading multidisciplinary institution with a diverse student body and extensive research impact.)  While at UCL, Bashir was an active member of the university's official student news outlet, Pi Media. She was appointed Editor-in-Chief of PiTV in her final year.  In 2020, Bashir graduated with a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics (LSE).

Bashir joined CNN in 2018 as an intern. She went on to continue working with the network as a freelance producer before taking on a staff producer position in 2020.  She has worked in Kurdistan, Turkey, Yemen, Lebanon, and In 2019,she was later named International Correspondent in March 2024.

Following the October 7 attacks, Bashir has travelled frequently across the Middle East to report on the Gaza war and the broader regional fallout.

In the early months of the war, Bashir spent several weeks in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, (note-not Judea and Samaria, of course, not being Jewish) and here is what she, sees with her eyes as she tells it:  " reporting on the surge in violence against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories'" not a word of the Palestinians hitting the Jewish homes first) , as well as the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza (seeing what we know of how the Palestinians will not give up their weapons and continue to shoot at Israelis )..  

She also played a key role in covering the short-lived truce between Israel and Hamas in November 2023, reporting from Ramallah on the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails as part of a hostage exchange agreement. 

Me:  (During recent hostage exchange deals, Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli jails (primarily Ofer Prison, which is near Ramallah in the West Bank), not from jails within Ramallah itself. Israel does not generally hold Palestinian prisoners in Palestinian Authority-controlled jails in Ramallah; it holds them in its own prisons. )

Me:   (Israel released more than 1,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons in exchange. The 20 remaining living hostages were released as part of the Gaza peace plan on 13 October 2025. The body of one deceased hostage has yet to be returned to Israel.)

In 2024, Bashir gained access to a field hospital established off the coast of Al-Arish in North Sinai, where she met with and interviewed wounded Palestinians recently evacuated from the Gaza Strip. 

 She later reported from Lebanon on growing tensions between Hezbollah and Israel along the country's southern border, and was one of the first international correspondents at the scene following the "assassination" of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut.  

Me:   (Al-Arouri was considered one of the architects of the October 7 attack on Israel, and was also known for his role in expanding Hamas' activities in the West Bank.  The U.S,A .which designated him as a terrorist in 2015,  and had also put a $5 million bounty on his head. 

He was assassinated in 2024 during the Gaza war by an Israeli strike.  Al-Arouri was succeeded by Zaher Jabarin as Hamas's leader in the West Bank. (I wouldn't use assassinate, as it can  mean a willful killing of the famous person.  Willful implies an immoral or illegal attack,)  This is war, Israel is at war with all terrorists, for Pete's sake.  Do people not understand this?  THIS IS HAPPING DURING THE WAR OF REVIVAL, our new term for this war started by Hamas on October 7, 2023.) 

Nada  has also covered ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, traveling frequently to Cairo to follow meetings between diplomatic delegations involved in the talks. 

 I wonder if Nada could talk Hamas into giving up their weapons and abiding by the peace negotiations she helped to bring to fruition as they had actually signed the agreement since this is a breach of contract or a violation of the agreement.  

Well, Nada could also be working for al Jazeera !  I see her reporting as being very slanted.  CNN, who else does reporting around there?  Don't you see the difference?  I suppose a scientist could say that you see what you want to see, that it's colored by your background.  So it certainly is in this case.  Nada is so young, a young 31 compared to my 91 years, and my ability to remember the past is better than the last hour, you know.  I know how to find facts to back up my personal knowledge.  I know how to trust sources or not. I'm not surprised at what Nada writes with her slant on life;  not at all, just her name.  

So this is my last tidbit:  "It's impossible to know the exact number of women named Nada globally, but it's a popular female name, especially in Croatia, where over 30,000 women share the name and it was once a top name, and in Arabic-speaking countries like Egypt and Lebanon, with significant numbers there too. While less common in the U.S., it's still used, ranking around #2700 for girls on The Bump and #4428 in U.S. births recently, indicating thousands of bearers worldwide."Wow!  I didn't know!!! 

 I'm the Nada that is an Israeli and an American, named for my paternalgrandfather, Nathan; Nadene officially but Nada to the family and our dining room.  I write about the Middle East, too, but in blogs, have been ever since 2004. It's rare, maybe only me with Jewish females except:

• Historical Usage: Historical records from the Damascus Shariah Courts between the 16th and 20th centuries show that "Nada" was used as a female given name by Jewish women in that specific community, indicating some limited historical use in certain Sephardic or Mizrahi contexts. This suggests a small, specific cultural crossover rather than widespread use.

Resource 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nada_Bashir 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups#:~:text=Religious%20demographics,-Further%20information:%20List&text=One%20way%20to%20define%20a,best%20source(s)%22.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Influential Zionist For Defense From Odessa, Ukraine

 

Nadene Goldfoot                                             

Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky or Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky (17 October 1880--3 August 1940, was born into an assimilated Jewish family, dying at age 60, and was a writer, orator and Zionist leader of Russian birth in Odessa, Ukraine.    

His father, Yevno (Yevgeniy Grigoryevich) Zhabotinsky, hailed from Nikopol, Yekaterinoslav Governorate. He was a member of the Russian Society of Sailing and Trade.  His mother, Chava (Eva Markovna) Zach (1835–1926), came from Berdychiv, Kiev Governorate. Jabotinsky's older brother Myron died when Vladimir was six months old, and his father died when he was six years old. His sister, Tereza (Tamara Yevgenyevna) Zhabotinskaya-Kopp, founded a private school for girls in Odessa. In 1885, the family moved to Germany due to his father's illness, returning a year later after his father's death.   

Raised in a middle-class Jewish home, Jabotinsky was educated in Russian schools. Although he studied Hebrew as a child, he wrote in his autobiography that his upbringing was divorced from Jewish faith and tradition.  The Hasidic movements originated in the 18th century in Ukraine.  This was a center of Zionism in the 19th and 20th century.  It's always been an anti-Semitic center with pogroms in 1905, and 1918-1920.  

 His mother ran a stationery store in Odessa. and his father was primarily involved in wheat trading.

Jabotinsky dropped out of school at the age of 17 with a guarantee of a job as a correspondent for a local Odessan newspaper, the Odesskiy Listok, and was sent to Bern and Rome as a correspondent. He also worked for the Odesskie Novosti after his return from Italy. Jabotinsky was a childhood friend of Russian journalist and poet Korney Chukovsky.    Ze'ev served as the Rome correspondent for the Odessa newspapers under the pen-name of "Altalena, from 1898 to 1901. While in Rome he attended Sapienza University Law school but didn't graduate.  He spoke  Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew and fluent Italian.                                         

During the period of the British Mandate for Palestine (1918-1948), Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky was imprisoned in Akko (or Acre; now a museum). After the riots in Jerusalem, he, being the organizer of Jewish self-defense, was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor. He was subsequently exonerated.

Back in April 1902 he had been arrested for writing feuilletons in an anti-establishment tone, as well as contributing to a radical Italian journal. He was held isolated in a prison cell in Odessa for two months, where he communicated with other inmates through shouting and passing written notes.                            

                        Ze'ev, Anya and Eri Jabotinsky

 While in Odessa, Jabotinsky married Joanna (or Ania) Galperina in October 1907. They had one child, Eri Jabotinsky (1910-1969), who later became a member of the Irgun-affiliated Bergson Group.   Eri Jabotinsky briefly served in the 1st Knesset of Israel; he died on 6 June 1969 at age 59..

 Beginning his Zionist activities to Russia in 1903 at age 23, Ze'ev became a leading force in the struggle for Jewish self-defense units, civic and minority rights, and the revival of Hebrew.  

In World War I that started in 1914, he advocated the recruiting of Jewish regiments to fight on the Palestine front;  this led to the establishment of the Zion Mule Corps in 1915.  

He served in 20th Battalion of the London Regiment in platoon 16 from 1916-1917.                          

     Lt Jabotinsky in the uniform of the Royal Fusiliers

In 1917, the end of the war, the British government consented to the formation of Jewish battalions, in one of which Jabotinsky served.  He organized the 1st Jewish self-defense in Jerusalem and led it during the Arab onslaught in 1920.  For this he was sentenced by the British Military tribunal to 15 years imprisonment but was soon reprieved.Ze'ev jabotinsky served in platoon 16 of the 20th Battalion of the London Regiment between 1916 and 1917.  

He wrote when a lieutenant in the Jewish Legion which he had founded, "Not in Russia nor in Poland had there been seen such an intense and widespread atmosphere of hatred as prevailed in the British army in Palestine in 1919 and 1920.  1920's Spring was like 2022's Spring with Ramadan and Easter and Passover all falling at about the same time.  Attacks on Jews happened then, too, with mobs armed with clubs and knives, first looting shops,  Then they caught and beat up or killed Jews and raped Jewish women.  The Court of Enquiry of Brits said, "Jews were the victims of a peculiarly brutal and cowardly attack, the majority of the casualties being old men, women and children.  As for this year of 2022, "Jerusalem District Police Commander Nati Gur said that the Israel Police is preparing for a "worst-case scenario" on Jerusalem's Temple Mount during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan."

In 1921, Jabotinsky joined the Zionist Executive but resigned in 1923, accusing it of failing to oppose British policy with sufficient vigor.  In 1925, he formed the World Union of Zionist revisionists in opposition to official Zionism and later the youth organization of Berit Trumpeldor-Betar.  

When the Zionist Organization coopted non-Zionists into the Jewish Agency in 1929 and refused to define the aim of Zionism as a Jewish State in 1931, Jabotinsky began to advocate secession;  the "discipline clause,"introduced in 1935, precipitated the formation of Jabotinsky  of a dissident "New Zionist Organization."

From 1936, he urged the speedy evacuation of Eastern European Jewry to Palestine.  Jabotinsky became the spiritual father and nominal head of the Irgun Tzevai Leumi, which was the Jewish right-winged underground movement.   It became in 1936 an instrument of the Revisionist Party, an extreme nationalist group that had seceded from the World Zionist Organization and whose policies called for the use of force, if necessary, to establish a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan.  

It was this very group that Avraham Stern left of which he had been a leader, because of its refusal to continue -British activities in Palestine during WWII.  He formed the Lohame Herut Israel-otherwise known as the Stern Group or the Stern Gang-as the Brits called it.  

When World War II broke out, he again demanded a Jewish army.  Jabotinsky wrote a great deal.  His influence on Israeli politics is profound through his closest protégé Menachem Begin's administration (1977–1983), consolidating the domination of Israeli politics by the right-wing Likud party; and through the administrations (1996–1999, 2009–) of Likud's leader (1993–1999, 2005–) Benjamin Netanyahu, the son of his former personal secretary and historian, Benzion Netanyahu.

           Ze'ev and wife were reburied here in Jerusalem  from New York, where he had died.

In 1964, his body was reburied on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.  

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ze%27ev_Jabotinsky

https://kids.kiddle.co/Ze%27ev_Jabotinsky

Battleground, fact and fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz, p.60-61