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Syrian refugee family finds sweeter life at Mount Airy diner

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    Michael Matza
    Michael Matza, an Inquirer staff writer since 1986, spent six years in Jerusalem as the paper's Middle East bureau chief. He wrote extensively about the Arab-Israeli conflict and run-up to the Iraq War. He returned to Philadelphia in 2006 as the paper's staff writer on immigration. His work in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake included a vivid portrait of a woman whose arm had to be amputated, and follow-ups to her story. From Honduras in 2014 he wrote about San Pedro Sula, the city with the world's highest homicide rate, and an orphanage with a strong connection to Philadelphia. In 2015 he authored a series from Cuba. In the 1990s, as the paper's New England bureau chief, he covered the murders of abortion clinic workers in Boston, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the crash of TWA Flight 800. He is a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.