Henrique Cymerman

Henrique Cymerman Benarroch (born 23 March 1959) is an Portuguese journalist of Israeli and Spanish origin who works as a correspondent in the Middle East for SIC, La Vanguardia and Mediaset España, among others. He works in five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Hebrew. He is the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry between Israel and The GCC (Persian Gulf States). Cymerman was born in Porto, Portugal to a Portuguese father and a Spanish mother – his father being an Ashkenazi Jew of Polish descent and his mother a Sephardic Jew of Moroccan descent. He decided to move to Israel on his own at age 16. He graduated in Social Science at Tel Aviv University and holds a master's degree in the branches of Political Science and Labor Studies. Years later, he worked as a lecturer in that same center and perfected his knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic until he was hired in 1982 by the Israeli newspaper Maariv to work as a correspondent in the Iberian Peninsula.

In 1991 he started working as a correspondent in the Middle East for the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, a job he combined from 1992 onwards with being a correspondent for the Spanish television channel Antena 3. It is in 2014 when Henrique bets for Mediaset España, abandoning Antena 3 after working for them for more than 20 years. Henrique also worked as a correspondent for the Portuguese network SIC and has appeared on numerous occasions on the BBC, as well as in Israeli and Palestinian channels. He was the last person to interview former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 24 hours before his assassination.

Henrique Cymerman has covered current affairs in the Middle East for more than 25 years. Over time he has developed many relationships of trust with those heading the chief regional political processes in Israel, the Middle East, and the Arab world, allowing him to serve as a unique bridge between the nations involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict.During the 2010s, he became the first Israeli journalist in history to do a TV broadcast from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.Cymerman is also a lecturer on Middle East Studies in the Faculty of Government, Strategy and Diplomacy in the Interdisciplinary Center for Higher Education in Herzliya, Israel.

Between 2005 and 2012, he published the book Voices from the Center of the World: The Arab-Israeli Conflict told by its Protagonists in six languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic, Brazilian edition and English). The book includes interviews with key characters in the region, such as Yasser Arafat; Shimon Peres; Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin; Omar bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden; Mahmoud Abbas; and Yitzhak Rabin's last interview.

Henrique Cymerman directed the TV documentary series Jihad Now, in which he explores the roots of radical Islam, al-Qaeda and Islamic State. The show aired in 2016.