Europe and a Tale of Two Wars
Vladislav Davidzon
An interview with Vladislav Davidzon about the relationship between the Russia-Ukraine and the Iran-Israel wars, European and American attitudes to both, and Israel-Ukraine relations.
Reason of State, Reason and the State
Akin Ajayi
The Frankfurter Buchemesse, the International Book Fair, gave Akin Ajayi the opportunity to think about Staatsräson and Germany’s strategic relationship with Israel. It turns out there was much to read between the lines …
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme
Anne Dubitzky
A chapter from Back to the Garden, The Magic of Gardening Therapy
Imagining the Land of Israel without the State of Israel
Adi Livny
A new biography revisits the politico-religious thought of Judah Magnes, one of the most controversial figures in the history of Zionism.
The not-yet-final loss of Colombia
David A. Rosenthal
Colombia, once Israel's most loyal ally in Latin America, broke off ties with the Jewish state in 2024. Does it mean it's heading for Iran's and China's orbit? Not necessarily.
Jewish and Palestinian-Arab Nationalisms: A Reappraisal
Olga Kirschbaum-Shirazki
The common perception in the West that Palestinian nationalism is left-wing and specifically anti-imperialist, and Jewish nationalism right-wing and imperialist, runs counter to the modern history of nations and nationalism. How did this come to be?
Religious Zionists from Mars, Secular Israelis from Venus
Avidan Freedman
The support of secular Israelis for a hostage deal, citing humanistic values, and the rejection of it on security grounds by many Religious Zionists mark an interesting inversion of traditional roles. How did that come to be?
The Unnamed Generation of Hebrew Poetry
Shani Pocker
Disengagement is the key feature of a new cohort of Israeli poets: Disengagement from the physical world and lofty ideals for the sake of the marginal, the ridiculous and the mundane.
From The Margins
Yizhar Be'er
Three biographies of Palestinian revolutionary leaders tell a story of post-Nakba dreams and reckoning away from the national consensus.
Israel’s very own Black Mirror
Stav Meishar
After October 7, Yishai Sarid's 2015 dystopian novel The Third Temple (now out in English) feels less like a cautionary tale than an eerie description of Israel's unfolding reality.
Behind the scenes of the ‘Amos Oz’ performance
Naama Israeli
Some of Oz's books were real cultural events, sometimes specifically because of their relationship with the great novelist's biography. Two new scholarly books, published after his death, investigate the interplay between Oz the person and Oz the phenomenon.
The Two-State Solution: Dead, And Finally Buried?
Nathaniel Shils
Two edited books, published on the eve of October 7, attempt to accord academic rigor to the growing consensus on the supposed demise of the two-state solution. But even after Hamas' attack and the destruction of Gaza, the ambivalence remains.
A Collective of Caricatures
Eyal Goldstein
Setting a crime thriller on a kibbutz is a novel proposition indeed, but Lavie Tidhar's novel fails to contribute to the canon of kibbutz literature.
Assad May Be Gone, But Ba’athism isn’t
Dastan Jasim
The survival of the multiethnic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria would be a litmus test for the country's future – whether it can turn the page after the Assad regime's genocidal mix of Islamism and Arab supremacy.
Not A Very Good Time For Hebrew
Michal Zechariah
It is not a coincidence that the first English translation of a book by California-based Maya Arad, a virtuoso of linguistic verisimilitude, is dedicated to the growing bifurcation of Israeli expats' attitudes to their country of origin.
Who Owns Palestine’s Cultural Assets?
Amir Nassar
The seizure of Palestinian archives by Israel in 1948 and thereafter is marked by ambivalence: some view it as an act of cultural preservation, while others see it as theft and plunder.
Portrait of a Great Israeli Novelist
Yael Halevi-Wise
'The Mission of A.B. Yehoshua' is the first definitive biography of the great Israeli author, who died in 2022. Written by a cultural organizer rather than an academic, the book addresses many of the many contradictions – artistic as well as political – that guided his prolific career.
Thought Clouds of Love and Conflict
Ilan Goren
After an absence of more than a year from the Parisian public sphere, the Israeli flag makes a bold comeback on the cover of a new graphic book, 16 love stories from the Holy Land. The book’s attempt to transcend entrenched dichotomies is no less bold.
Hebrew Against the Odds
Yeshua Tolle
The translation of Israeli literature into English – and of Jewish-American literature into Hebrew – has always reeked of political struggles, as the two centers of 20th-century Jewry wrestled for primacy.
The Power of Reestablishment
Carole Nuriel
In the wake of October 7, Israelis rallied to save their country from invasion. Will they rise to the occasion and fend off what continues to plague their society?
A Plea to ‘Hybrid Israelis’
Mijal Bitton
In his post-Oct. 7 treatise, Micah Goodman makes a case that there's more that unites Israelis than divides them. As compelling as it is, he makes some convenient omissions that complicate the picture more than he's willing to admit.
A Theory for the Future
Bennett Tucker
A reappraisal of Moisei Ginzburg’s seminal book "Style and Epoch" reframes the Jewish-Soviet architect’s legacy, and prompts questions about Tel Aviv’s modernist heritage.
Where the answer to the crisis of modernity might lie
Gitit Holzman
A new book sheds light on the intrepid Elia Benamozegh, the 19th-century Jewish-Italian kabbalist and polymath, whose synthesis of Jewish theology and modern thought remains virtually unparalleled well into the 21st century.
A Sonnet Seeking a Homeland
Rita Kogan Zackary Sholem Berger
On Rita Kogan's poem "Thoughts on Leah Goldberg, Dan Pagis and Charles Baudelaire".
‘The Land Is a Text’
Joshua Krug
Prominent 20th-century American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is widely remembered as a thinker of Jewish temporality. But his thinking on Zionism and the notion of a Jewish homeland are all the more relevant after October 7th.
(Un)burdened by the past
Benjamin Selesnick
Ayalet Tsabari's new novel further develops themes that featured in her previous works: how Israelis of Arab descent have experienced discrimination in Israel, how marginalization begins and is enforced, and how embracing the exiled parts of oneself is an act of resistance that ultimately leads to identity integration.
Trouble in Paradise
Akin Ajayi
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's fourth novel, a psychological thriller focusing on an Israeli family living in Silicon Valley, is further evidence of her prescience in first identifying then concatenating Israeli social dilemmas into personal morality plays.
He Was The Future
Yoav Di-Capua
A new book analyzes the rise and fall of Nasserism—once the most powerful political movement in the Middle East, sweeping the Arab World before it disappeared into thin air.
Libretto: Hanoch Levin
Tal Kra-Oz
Twenty-five years after his death, Israel's greatest playwright is given an operatic tribute. The lush adaptation could not be further removed from the crummy fringe theatres that once featured his sardonic satires—but it certainly does justice to his legacy.
October 7 and its aftermath: A view from Kurdistan and the Kurdish Diaspora
Veysi Dag
Hamas' attack on Israel played a pivotal role in Turkey's and Iran's longstanding imperialist strategy to destabilize the Middle East. Since then, they have been emboldened in myriad ways.
How different does this novel on Jewish history read post-Oct. 7?
Jessamyn Hope
Janice Weizman's new novel, 'Our Little Histories,' traces three branches of a Jewish family – American, Israeli and Eastern European – from 2015 back to the Pale of Settlement. In an interview she says that even though it was published on the eve of October 7, it still has a lot to say on our present moment.
The Possibility of Exile
Vivian Cohen-Leisorek
A new collection of short stories, half of them set in Israel and the other half in the US, feature characters that – to paraphrase Medieval poet Yehuda Halevi – are pulled to the West while their hearts remain in the East.
Carthage / A Novel
Zohar Kohavi
An excerpt from Zohar Kohavi's debut novel, translated by Daniella Zamir.
The day Kafka’s last wish became Agnon’s nightmare
Jeffrey Saks
Newly revealed evidence shows that a fire that devastated S.Y. Agnon's house 100 years ago bears Kafkaesque coincidences.
Sabras in Outer Space
Marcela Sulak
Exquisitely crafted so that the smallest details give us worlds, Iddo Gefen's short stories combine a preoccupation with spirituality and the incursion of advanced technology into our most personal, sensitive areas.
Reuven Rubin, ‘Palestine’s Gauguin’, 100 years on
Bennett Tucker
Featuring rural farmlands in the Galilee, vistas of Jerusalem's Old City and Tel Aviv's burgeoning modernity, Rubin's 1924 exhibition at Jerusalem's Tower of David Citadel was much more than the oft-cited 'first modern art exhibition in Israel.'
How social media triggered my BZD (Bipolar Zionist Disorder)
Zoe Karbe
I want peace. I want us to be friends with Palestinians, but these nutjob anti-Zionist/Israel folks need to be put in their place. Obviously, I'm the right person for the job. Two, three, five, ten, thirteen TikToks later, I am addicted.
All eyes on Tehran
David Daoud
A new book recounts the most recent decades of Iran’s quest to destroy Israel through a slow process of strangulation and attrition, and Israel’s attempts to resist through a combination of clandestine, kinetic, and diplomatic means. Its admirably sober tone is at once refreshing but also chilling.
Rotted Hinterland
Ariyeh Benjamin
I am in Massafer Yatta now, in the South Hebron Hills. It’s winter. The desert is bizarrely green. After 7 October, the unease has been replaced by absolute terror. Terror permeates itself through every second of every day. It always approaches; every tick of the clock is riddled with fear.
My Life With a Tel Aviv Icon
Dana Kessler
Ruthy Ish Cassit, widow of Moshe—owner of the eponymous Café Cassit, hangout of Tel Aviv's beau monde—has written a memoir chronicling her life alongside the greatest celebrities of the 1970s. While prone, perhaps inevitably, to namedropping, "Kach Hayinu" is an honest account of a deservedly mythical age.
Sharp Longing, in Jerusalem
Liza Michaeli
Ты пахнешь Израилем: You smell of Israel, my mother says to me every time I return from Israel. The truth is, this smell never goes away.
The Nazi Invention of Anti-Imperialist Antizionism
Lars Fischer
With the completion of the genocide against European Jewry in sight, they worried that antisemitism might no longer own the same mobilizing force once Europeans, and Germans in particular, were no longer confronted with real-life Jews, and this even though the fight was far from over. This was when they focused their propaganda on Zionism, the face of "Jewish Imperialism", and on Chaim Weizmann, "the single most dangerous troublemaker in the world."
Our Foorprints on Water / Joys That Do Not Come / Top-Down
Marzuq Halabi
Three poems by Palestinian poet Marzouk Halabi, translated from Arabic exclusively for the Tel Aviv Review of Books.
Love Song / A Poem
Amiram Cooper
Love Song was composed especially for the 25th anniversary of the founding of Kibbutz Nir Oz, in 1980. The writer, a resident of the kibbutz, was kidnapped to Gaza on October 7th, 2023.
A Joke, But a Very Serious One Indeed
Abe Silberstein
In a new book, historian Shlomo Sand presents an overview of the ideologies, movements and personalities associated with the political Left. The reactions of contemporary Leftists to Hamas' October 7 massacre serve as a pitch-perfect test of their legacy.
Nissim / A Short Story
Olga Lempert
Small and raggedy, his scowl still terrified me. This was when he knocked on my door and announced he had come to stay with me. He looked like he was having a tougher time than most. Shallow unshaven cheeks, angry burning eyes set deep into black circles, shaggy brows. He said his name was Nissim. I gave him some towels and sheets and left him to get on with it.
Against Analogy
Daniel J. Solomon
Masha Gessen's likening of the Gaza Strip to a Nazi ghetto is a master class in Holocaust inversion and distortion. These statements were made in the heat of a polemical debate, but moral outrage should never call the tune. There is a word for when it does: demagoguery.
Cassandra
Orian Zakai
“Tell them all that we love them to the moon and back”— the last message of the tatzpitaniyot (female lookouts) at the Nahal Oz outpost on October 7, 2023. The lookouts reportedly foresaw the events but their warnings were ignored. All but two were either murdered or taken hostage. A poem.
Jewish Ripples
Zev Mishell
A new book revisits a sizable, and now forgotten, anti-Zionist discourse that held sway among large swaths of American Jews in the mid-20th century. It serves as topical reminder of the prevalence of Jewish dissent before a consensus on Israel and Zionism took hold, one that now seems to fray.
The Book That Saw October 7 Coming From a Mile Away
Andrew Pessin
‘Caliphators’ advocating for the global triumph of Islam see Western values as signs of weakness and decadence. A new book argues that too many Western thinkers, championing progressive liberalism, insist on proving them right.
The War Against Cliche
Arie M. Dubnov
As William James noted, nations are not saved by wars but 'by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks.'
Israel Must Win This War
Ophir Toubul
The answer to Hamas’ barbarous attack would be to press on with efforts to consolidate a “peace axis” in the Middle East, in the spirit of the Abraham Accords.
The Constants and Variables of a Special Relationship
Joshua Goetz
Three new books explore how the US-Israel bond has come to be. While they offer radically different interpretations of the history, each convincing in its own way, they fail to provide an answer to the most burning question: Where is that relationship going?
A Martyr of Sorts, Punished for Our Imaginary Sins
Dana Kessler
A new Hebrew edition of Christiane F—the memoir of a 15-year-old German teenage prostitute and drug addict—has sent Dana Kessler on a reappreciation of one of the most influential books of her generation.
Classic Sephardic Judaism, Made in China
Aryeh Tepper
A formidable though short-lived Sephardi presence in early 20th-century Shanghai fostered unique interpretations of Jewish texts and perceptions. The community may have disappeared, but the ideas live on.
The Shape of Love
Haim Watzman
A chance encounter on a Jerusalem bench. Short story by Haim Watzman.
True Love or a Marriage of Convenience?
Rachel Harris
A new book looks at the vicissitudes of the relationship between Hollywood and Israel.
A Tolerant City?
Alex Stein
A new book sheds light on the history of medieval Jerusalem but its conclusions are ultimately unconvincing.
Understanding Kahane
Paul Gross
A new biography of Meir Kahane shows how integral he was to the American-Jewish story. Do recent events now show how integral he is becoming to the Israeli story?
The Dilemmas of Victory
Vivian Cohen-Leisorek
Yishai Sarid's new novel about an Israeli military psychologist raises important questions about honor, loyalty, and truth.
The New New Antisemitism?
Abe Silberstein
Three recent books provide radically different answers to the question of whether and why antisemitism is on the rise.
The Dynamic Bible
Olga Kirschbaum-Shirazki
An interview with the researcher and educator Pinchas Polonsky about his radical new approach to Bible commentary.
Hope is a Woman’s Name
Amal Elsana Alh’jooj
An excerpt from the memoir of a trailblazing Israeli Bedouin women's activist.