Avraham Tashach first arrived in North Korea as a tourist in April 2016, after visiting over a hundred countries in his thirty-year career as a tour guide. Like most visitors, he arrived in the country equipped with stories of North Korea as seen through Western eyes, but nothing could prepare him for the alternative reality he found—different from every other country he had ever visited, yet unlike anything he could ever imagine. For two years between 2016 and 2018, he returned to North Korea on seven different occasions, as a tour guide for Israeli travelers, during which he developed working relations with local working-class citizens of North Korea; ties which led to continuous, uncompromising dialogue on the country’s place in the global order and, eventually, lasting friendships built on honesty and respect.

Tashach holds a graduate degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Haifa, and a master’s degree in business administration from Tel Aviv University.