The Diamond Setter: A Gloriously Immersive Journey Into Modern Israel
“The Diamond Setter” offers an appealing portrayal of the complex interactions of LGBTQ characters, both Jews and Arabs.
Amos Oz, Israel’s Greatest Writer, Delivers Another Masterpiece at Age 77
At 77, Amos Oz delivers “Judas” set in Jerusalem in 1959-60. It’s one of the most triumphant novels of a magnificent career.
Etgar Keret Finds Redemption
In spite of its brevity, Etgar Keret’s first memoir delivers some very big truths about the public and private lives of the Israeli author, and his society writ large.
David Grossman Creates Yet Another Wrenching Masterpiece
The suffering of characters in David Grossman’s latest novel, ‘Falling Out of Time,’ becomes achingly real on the page. Its language is so poetic, it sounds like liturgy for mourning rituals.
Journeying Back to the Land of Amos Oz
Amos Oz fled his dogmatic father’s Jerusalem home for a kibbutz where he raised a family. His latest book, ‘Between Friends,’ was inspired by that personal history.
Mark Helprin's Politics Doesn't Get in Way of Prose
His strident politics notwithstanding, Mark Helprin’s magically descriptive powers have rendered up some of the most genuinely adventurous writing of our time.
Portraying Inner Conflict of Israeli-Arabs
Sayed Kashua’s ‘Second Person Singular’ illuminates Israeli Arabs’ fraught condition as insiders and outsiders and their painful struggle to create a life of meaning.
A Zionist Heroine in Her Own Mind
FORWARD BOOKS SPECIAL: Novelist Meir Shalev tells the true story of his grandmother. She’s a Zionist heroine in her own mind, and a deranged malcontent to everyone else.
A Twilight Unto the Nations
In the world of comics, Israel has a long and lively culture of illustrated political commentary. There’s even an Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comics in Holon to honor that tradition. Contemporary work from graphic novelists such as Rutu Modan, Yirmi Pinkus and Asaf Hanuka is attracting international raves, and the scene is filled with emerging talent. The young artist Sivan Hurvitz stands out, though, for her highly controversial series, “Turn Right at the End.” Based on her senior undergraduate thesis at the Holon Institute of Technology, the show imaginatively critiques what she and many others perceive as alarmingly anti-democratic and intolerant tendencies in contemporary Israel. Set in possible future Israels, Hurvitz’s scenes may repel some and provoke sadness, recognition or unease in others, but her visceral imagery will leave nobody untouched. Her Zion, rendered as both familiar and unknown, is at a turning point in its history.
To the End and Back Again
There is a moment in David Grossman?s novel, ?See Under: Love,? when an Israeli son of Holocaust survivors gazes at his own sleeping child and remarks to his beaming wife: ??It?s a good thing he can sleep through all the noise? He may have to sleep with tanks passing in the streets someday.?? Perhaps that stark utterance was the catalyst for Grossman?s latest novel, ?To the End of the Land,? with its gripping meditation on love, war, suffering and rebirth. In the future, this may be regarded as Israel?s definitive anti-war novel, but that does not begin to account for its shattering poetry, nor for its incandescent empathy for characters whose euphoria and sorrows are fully revealed.