TIMES OF ISRAEL
by Debra Kamin
September 3, 2014

Freelance journalist captured and beheaded in Syria was Jewish, held Israeli citizenship and earned his undergraduate degree at IDC

Steven Sotloff, the American journalist whose gruesome beheading was confirmed in a video released Tuesday night by Islamic State terrorists in Syria, first came to know Israel as an optimistic government student at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. On Wednesday afternoon, the Foreign Ministry cleared for publication the fact that he held Israeli citizenship. Sotloff, a Jewish native of Miami and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, came to Israel in 2008 to pursue his undergraduate degree at the IDC. He wasn’t starry-eyed about the Jewish state, a former classmate said last week. In fact, while he clearly loved Israel, his views on the country were as complicated as the region itself. “Like most of us, he came here and he became very critical of the government,” said Hillary Lynne Glaser, who studied conflict resolution, international relations and counter-terrorism alongside Sotloff…..“He didn’t hate it enough to not come visit,” she said.

…….The Times of Israel held this story for several weeks out of fear of endangering Sotloff’s life by writing about his Jewish and Israeli connections……

…….Sotloff, Kessler said, never shared his Jewish identity with anyone in the field, opting instead to tell locals that he had been raised Muslim but secular, without mosque affiliation. He sometimes even chose to tell people that he was of Chechen origin, and that Sotloff – a name that rings decidedly Jewish to those familiar with Jewish names – was actually a Chechen name…….

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http://www.timesofisrael.com/steve-sotloff-beheaded-by-isis-militants-had-deep-roots-in-israel/