State Dept Atwitter Over Young, Jewish Tech Tutor
Oh, to be young, Jewish, and the State Department’s tutor on how to tweet.
Jared Cohen, 27, roughed it in Iranian speakeasies drinking bootleg moonshine, and scarfed hamburgers with friendly members of Hezbollah in the name of reporting on Middle Eastern youth culture. After two books worth of these antics plus sneaking across borders and touring refugee camps, Cohen has settled into a comfortable government job back in the states. Formerly known as Condi’s Party Starter, Cohen is undoubtedly D.C.’s first Middle Eastern social networking tzar, but this new charge can’t keep him out of mainstream news.
He’s making headlines for asking Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance that would have temporarily shut down their network in Iran. There, users are circumventing government censorship to tweet about the violent, post-fraudulent election protests taking place. Twitter deferred to Cohen and delayed the upgrade. E-diplomacy saves the day.
For Cohen, it was just another day at the office. He’s not running for anything at present, but he proves he can jog and wave with the best of the politicians in this guest appearance on the Colbert Report:
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
