About Gregg Roman
The soldier who became the strategist who became the storyteller.
Gregg Roman was a suburban American kid who crossed an ocean to find out whether the things he believed were true. The answer took twenty years to arrive, and it became five books.
He enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces as a foreign volunteer — the kind of soldier Israel calls a chayal boded, a lone soldier — and stayed to work inside the country’s Ministry of Defense during the years when the peace process was dying and nobody in the rooms wanted to say so. He served as an advisor to Israel’s deputy foreign minister, taught counterterrorism to cadets at West Point, and now directs a Middle East–focused research organization in Philadelphia, where his work runs from policy analysis to operations against the extremist networks most institutions only write about. He appears in international media hundreds of times a year, from Fox News and i24NEWS to the BBC and Al Jazeera.
His books make one argument five ways. The Carthage Doctrine (October 2026) states it plainly: conflicts end in decisive victory, not managed decline. The citizen-volunteer trilogy — Repaying Lafayette, Contraband Patriots, and Alone in the Ranks (2027) — supplies two and a half centuries of evidence: the Americans who fought for other nations’ freedom, the underground that armed Israel in 1948, and the lone soldiers of the IDF. And his debut novel, The Closing Window (out now), carries the argument into the reader’s chest: a thriller about a Washington think tank running live networks inside Iran as the window for action closes.
Every book he writes is one entry in the same ledger: the record of what it costs free people to stay free, and of the volunteers who pay it when governments won’t. Someone has to keep the count.
The ledger, kept on himself
Every entry below is sourced — to the record, or to the books.
- 1995
Watching Rabin's assassination from Yardley
Nine years old on Hunt Drive in Yardley, Pennsylvania, he comes home from school to find his mother in tears at the news that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has been shot at a peace rally — the first crack in a comfortable suburban world.
- 2006
Moves to Israel; firefighter in the Lebanon War
He withdraws from American University, lands at Ben Gurion Airport in June 2006 to study at IDC Herzliya, and within weeks is volunteering as a firefighter in rocket-scarred northern Israel during the Second Lebanon War.
- 2007
Israeli citizenship and a Knesset desk
He completes aliyah and becomes an Israeli citizen, and the same month begins work as foreign-policy advisor to Member of Knesset Alex Miller, liaising with foreign diplomats and the international press.
- 2008
Enlists in the IDF
Drafted in August 2008, he trades his advisor's suit for a uniform in November, serving until November 2010 as an NCO for international organizations and foreign affairs at the Tel Aviv headquarters of COGAT, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
- 2010
Advisor to the deputy foreign minister
Weeks after his discharge, he becomes political advisor to Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, handling foreign delegations and the English-speaking front of Israel's diplomatic battles.
- 2012
Pittsburgh CRC directorship
After six years in Israel he returns to the United States to direct the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh — the community's liaison and advocate.
- 2014
The Sotloff effort
While ISIS holds journalist Steven Sotloff — his friend from IDC Herzliya — Roman organizes volunteers who monitor the internet in shifts to scrub thousands of references to Sotloff's Jewish and Israeli identity, once getting a New York Times reference removed in 27 minutes.
- 2014
JTA's ten inspiring Jews of 5774
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency names him among the ten Jews who inspired in 5774 for leading the two-week operation to protect Steven Sotloff's identity while he was held hostage.
- 2015
Joins the Middle East Forum
Daniel Pipes announces Roman's appointment as director of the Middle East Forum; he leaves Pittsburgh that year for the Philadelphia think tank he will later describe as his command center in the war of ideas.
- 2025
Named MEF Executive Director
The Middle East Forum announces its leadership transition: founder Daniel Pipes becomes chairman of the executive committee and Roman is named Executive Director.
- 2025
Testifies before Congress on aid to terror groups
At the House Oversight DOGE Subcommittee's "America Last" hearing, he testifies that U.S. foreign aid flowed to terror-tied organizations — including $2.1 billion to Gaza since October 7, roughly 90 percent of it ending up in Hamas-controlled areas.
- 2025
Brings his family home to Israel
He moves his wife and children from Philadelphia to Israel, ending thirteen years in America — six months, as he writes in The Carthage Doctrine's prologue, before the sirens of February 28, 2026.
- 2025
Knesset testimony on the cost of redeeming hostages
He testifies before the Israeli Knesset on the cost of redeeming hostages — the price of the deals that trade prisoners for the kidnapped.
- 2026
The Closing Window published
His debut novel — a thriller about a Washington think tank running live networks inside Iran as a thirty-nine-day war ignites — is published by Middle East Forum Press.
- 2026
The Carthage Doctrine
Part memoir, part doctrine: the book opens on a shelter floor, counting to ninety with his children, and argues that conflicts end in decisive victory or they do not end.
- 2027
The citizen-volunteer trilogy
Repaying Lafayette, Contraband Patriots, and Alone in the Ranks arrive in 2027: 250 years of Americans who fought for other nations' freedom, the underground that armed Israel in 1948, and the lone soldiers of the IDF.
Recognition & the record
- Shofar so good: The Jews who inspired us in 5774
- Witness before the U.S. House Oversight Committee and the Knesset.
- Taught counterterrorism to cadets at West Point.
- Member, Society of Professional Journalists.
- Member, National Press Club.
Beyond the books
- Before the Ministry of Defense, he served as a volunteer firefighter in northern Israel during the 2006 Lebanon war.
- Executive producer of Murdaugh Murders: Deadly Dynasty (Investigation Discovery, 2022) and the short films You’re Family Now (2021) and The Runner (2022).
- He also advises institutions privately on geopolitical risk and crisis response.
Where to start
- Reading for the story? The Closing Window.
- Reading for the argument? The Carthage Doctrine.
- Reading for the history? Repaying Lafayette.
- All five, one argument: the books.
Inquiries
For interviews, speaking, and book clubs, use the contact form or grab the press kit — bios in three lengths, photographs, and per-book fact sheets, ready to go. Inquiries about my work as executive director of the Middle East Forum should go through the Forum; this address is for the books.