In a coffee shop in his native city, as a Denver spring blizzard howls outside, Herb Keinon contemplates the roads not taken.

More than two decades ago, with a brand new master’s degree in journalism in his pocket, he chose to head for Israel, over any number of other options that might have been open to him.

“It’s amazing,” he says, sipping coffee and staring at the Colorado snow. “Sometimes I think I might have gotten a job at the Topeka Standard, or whatever the name of the paper is. I would have been covering city council.”

Instead, he landed a job as a copy editor at the Jerusalem Post, a job which turned into reporter for a weekly supplement, then reporter for the main daily edition, up to the present day, when his business card carries the title of diplomatic correspondent.

Translation: That’s a frontline job at a frontline newspaper in a frontline city in a frontline country.