Steven Joel Sotloff
Steven Joel Sotloff was an American-Israeli journalist. In August 2013, he was kidnapped in Aleppo, Syria, and held captive by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).On September 2, 2014, ISIS released a beheading video, showing one of its members beheading Sotloff. Following Sotloff's beheading, US President Barack Obama stated that the United States will take action to "degrade and destroy" ISIS. Born Steven Joel Sotloff on May 11, 1983, in Miami, FL. Steven died c. September 2, 2014, at the age of 31 in the Syrian Desert. Steven held both Israeli and American citizenship, although his Jewish background and Israeli citizenship were not made public during his work in Muslim countries or during his captivity for fear that the information might endanger his release. He was the son of Arthur and Shirley Sotloff of Pinecrest, FL, and a grandson of Holocaust survivors. He grew up in Pinecrest, FL, graduated from Kimball Union Academy, a private boarding school in Meriden, NH and later attended (but did not graduate from) the University of Central Florida with a major in journalism from 2002 to 2004. He studied at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel from 2005 to 2008. Sotloff previously worked for Temple Beth Am Day School in Florida.
