Biography
Tom Gross is a journalist, international affairs commentator and human rights campaigner, specializing in the Middle East. He was formerly mideast correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and New York Daily News.
He has written editorials, features and book reviews for a broad range of publications, both liberal and conservative. These include, in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard and New York Post; in Britain, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Daily Mail, Evening Standard, Spectator, Standpoint, Harpers and Cosmopolitan; in Canada, The National Post; in Australia, The Australian; in Israel, Haaretz, Maariv, The Jerusalem Post and Jerusalem Report; and elsewhere, in Italian, Czech, Indian, Brazilian and other publications.
He has contributed columns to the National Review (U.S.) and National Post (Canada), and served as an advisor to various other media, including Radio Farda, a leading pro-democracy station broadcasting into Iran.
Gross serves on the international advisory boards of several organizations, including the Raif Badawi Foundation, campaigning for the release of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent liberal political prisoner, and the Center for Cultural Diplomacy & Development, a joint Muslim-Christian-Jewish organization established by the exiled daughter of a senior Iranian Ayatollah, and to NGO Monitor and Keren Malki (a charity for special needs children). He is a founding signatory to The Henry Jackson Society’s Statement of Principles.
He has given talks on politics, media, human rights and counter-terrorism at Harvard, Yale, and at universities and conferences in Israel, Qatar, France, Geneva, Athens, Prague, Budapest and Washington DC, among others.
Besides receiving various positive accolades, he has been parodied on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, and jokingly voted World’s Worst Person on Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC Countdown program. (Gross says he was misquoted by Olbermann.) Gross has been called a Stakhanovite by The Spectator magazine.
Television
Tom Gross has worked on several television programs and documentary films, including BBC TV specials on Czech Roma (Gypsies), the “BBC Rough Guide to Prague and Bratislava,” and a BBC documentary on Sudeten Germans.
He has been interviewed on a number of TV and radio stations, including CNN, NPR, BBC, Fox, Sky News Arabia, Russia Today, and Canadian and Australian broadcasting.
Prague
Gross has also lived and worked in Prague, where in the past he served as correspondent (covering the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Albania) for the London Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. He also wrote a regular op-ed column for The Prague Post and occasional op-eds for Lidove Noviny.
Elle, MTV and Time Out
In the 1990s, he was a key member of the team that launched the Czech edition of Elle, the first international glossy magazine in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. He also served as Prague Events Coordinator for MTV Europe, and co-authored The Time Out Guide to Prague.
Books
Tom Gross is co-author (with Margaret Helfgott) of “Out of Tune: David Helfgott and the Myth of Shine” (Warner Books, New York, 1998) and of “The Time Out Guide to Prague” (Penguin Books, London, 1995).
Out of Tune received enthusiastic reviews in leading international newspapers and was acclaimed as “a significant and courageous work on both music and the movies.” It was a book which tried to redress a serious injustice, and gave the Helfgott family a chance to make their case against the severe misrepresentation of them in Shine – a film which won many awards, including an Oscar for best actor. The World Schizophrenia Foundation, other mental health organizations, and Holocaust-related charities, have publicly praised the book for counteracting the damaging and distorted portrayal of mental disability and the psychological effects of the Holocaust by the makers of Shine.
Tom Gross has also contributed essays to a number of books, including “Those Who Forget The Past” (edited by Ron Rosenbaum, Random House, New York, 2004) and worked as a consultant on several books, including “Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey” (by Isabel Fonseca), and as an editor on others, including “Germany and its Gypsies: A post-Auschwitz ordeal” (by Gilad Margalit) and “Peace Now: The History of the Israeli Peace Movement” (by Tzaly Reshef).
Both Gross’s work on the Middle East and on Roma has been used in other books, including “The Case for Democracy,” by Natan Sharansky.
Education
Gross was educated at Oxford University, where he studied PPE (politics, philosophy and economics).
Biography
Tom Gross is a journalist, international affairs commentator and human rights campaigner, specializing in the Middle East. He was formerly mideast correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and New York Daily News.
He has written editorials, features and book reviews for a broad range of publications, both liberal and conservative. These include, in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard and New York Post; in Britain, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Daily Mail, Evening Standard, Spectator, Standpoint, Harpers and Cosmopolitan; in Canada, The National Post; in Australia, The Australian; in Israel, Haaretz, Maariv, The Jerusalem Post and Jerusalem Report; and elsewhere, in Italian, Czech, Indian, Brazilian and other publications.
He has contributed columns to the National Review (U.S.) and National Post (Canada), and served as an advisor to various other media, including Radio Farda, a leading pro-democracy station broadcasting into Iran.
Gross serves on the international advisory boards of several organizations, including the Raif Badawi Foundation, campaigning for the release of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent liberal political prisoner, and the Center for Cultural Diplomacy & Development, a joint Muslim-Christian-Jewish organization established by the exiled daughter of a senior Iranian Ayatollah, and to NGO Monitor and Keren Malki (a charity for special needs children). He is a founding signatory to The Henry Jackson Society’s Statement of Principles.
He has given talks on politics, media, human rights and counter-terrorism at Harvard, Yale, and at universities and conferences in Israel, Qatar, France, Geneva, Athens, Prague, Budapest and Washington DC, among others.
Besides receiving various positive accolades, he has been parodied on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, and jokingly voted World’s Worst Person on Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC Countdown program. (Gross says he was misquoted by Olbermann.) Gross has been called a Stakhanovite by The Spectator magazine.
Television
Tom Gross has worked on several television programs and documentary films, including BBC TV specials on Czech Roma (Gypsies), the “BBC Rough Guide to Prague and Bratislava,” and a BBC documentary on Sudeten Germans.
He has been interviewed on a number of TV and radio stations, including CNN, NPR, BBC, Fox, Sky News Arabia, Russia Today, and Canadian and Australian broadcasting.
Prague
Gross has also lived and worked in Prague, where in the past he served as correspondent (covering the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Albania) for the London Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. He also wrote a regular op-ed column for The Prague Post and occasional op-eds for Lidove Noviny.
Elle, MTV and Time Out
In the 1990s, he was a key member of the team that launched the Czech edition of Elle, the first international glossy magazine in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. He also served as Prague Events Coordinator for MTV Europe, and co-authored The Time Out Guide to Prague.
Books
Tom Gross is co-author (with Margaret Helfgott) of “Out of Tune: David Helfgott and the Myth of Shine” (Warner Books, New York, 1998) and of “The Time Out Guide to Prague” (Penguin Books, London, 1995).
Out of Tune received enthusiastic reviews in leading international newspapers and was acclaimed as “a significant and courageous work on both music and the movies.” It was a book which tried to redress a serious injustice, and gave the Helfgott family a chance to make their case against the severe misrepresentation of them in Shine – a film which won many awards, including an Oscar for best actor. The World Schizophrenia Foundation, other mental health organizations, and Holocaust-related charities, have publicly praised the book for counteracting the damaging and distorted portrayal of mental disability and the psychological effects of the Holocaust by the makers of Shine.
Tom Gross has also contributed essays to a number of books, including “Those Who Forget The Past” (edited by Ron Rosenbaum, Random House, New York, 2004) and worked as a consultant on several books, including “Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey” (by Isabel Fonseca), and as an editor on others, including “Germany and its Gypsies: A post-Auschwitz ordeal” (by Gilad Margalit) and “Peace Now: The History of the Israeli Peace Movement” (by Tzaly Reshef).
Both Gross’s work on the Middle East and on Roma has been used in other books, including “The Case for Democracy,” by Natan Sharansky.
Education
Gross was educated at Oxford University, where he studied PPE (politics, philosophy and economics).
Beyond politics, Tom Gross has interviewed many cultural figures
With Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated actress Kathleen Turner, and with Italian actor and director Roberto Benigni, who won Best Actor Oscar for Life is Beautiful (La vita è bella).
