Orly Halpern

Orly Halpern is a print journalist, on-air TV and radio reporter, field producer and researcher based in Jerusalem, Israel.
Orly Halpern grew up in Orange County, California and Tucson, Arizona. A visit to the Middle East as a teenager enticed her to return as an adult. Since moving to Jerusalem and becoming a journalist, her reporting has focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict. But in 2003 she traveled by a string of taxis to Baghdad where she spent a year living in and reporting from Iraq, serving as Baghdad correspondent of Canada's Globe and Mail. (During that time she and a colleague were kidnapped by insurgents near Falluja, but thanks to her knowledge of Arabic and her familiarity with Arab culture she was able to talk their way free.) Since then she has traveled across the Arab and Muslim world to learn and report on its people and politics.

Today Ms. Halpern continues to report from the region as a freelance journalist. Her reports have appeared in many newspapers and magazines and on radio and television, including TIME magazine, the Washington Post, Rotary International, US News and World Report, Haaretz newspaper (Israel), The Jerusalem Post, France24, Euronews, CBC and others. She has been field producer for Sky News (UK), served as the producer of the Jerusalem bureau of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and has produced numerous documentaries. During the Second Lebanon War she reported for US News and was an analyst on Fox News. She has reported from Africa, including Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Ghana and Egypt and from Afghanistan, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, the Palestinian Territories and Israel. Since the Gaza War, she has reported for ABC Australia and TIME magazine.