iReporter: Leonard coen had announced his retirement from music business. Hehe told an interviewer that he just wants to shut up, that he doesn't have anything else to say. But a chance meeting in a cafe in talevive changed the star's plans. In 19 70s Israel was a very small place with barely three million people and many were refugees.
In October 1973, an unhappy Leonard Cohen was listening to the radio on his Greek island home when he heard that Israel was at war. He headed to Tel Aviv, exchanging a personal and creative crisis for a national one. Absent a plan and even a guitar, Cohen wound up serenading Israeli soldiers at the front. Journalist Matti Friedman talks about his book Who by Fire with EconTalk host Russ Roberts and explains how a songwriter and a nation were transformed in the crucible of war.