Haim Watzman To the respected Torah scholar, Rabbi Rosencrantz, may he live a good and long life, amen: I would not disturb you at your studies were it not that the problem I face is pressing and the agony of my soul no longer bearable. Nor would I dare to write you under a false [...]

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Haim Watzman I almost stopped reading Aurelie Sheehan’s short story “Recognition” after the first sentence. Oh, God, another piece of fiction about a writer, written by a writer who only knows how to write about writing for an incestuous circle of other writers. But I had a rare opportunity to dip into some short fiction [...]

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Haim Watzman “Can I get some cooperation here?” asks Yoel in the firm but plaintive voice of a reserve platoon commander. Tourjeman, Brosh, and I are sitting like three monkeys (bald, sandy blond, bearded; wiry, fit, and flabby) on a small mound at the foot of the dusty spur that we’ve been charging up all [...]

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The lastest issue of Newsweek has a spread on on its writers’ choices for the top 10 books of the year. The Unmaking of Israel is on the list, picked by Peter Beinart: The online version is the Daily Beast’s longer listing of top reads for the year. If you’re in Israel and can’t find [...]

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Haim Watzman 10 July 1922 To the editor of Kuntres: My fellow music lovers in the Yishuv, tilling the land and laboring on the roads as they whistle and hum the works of the great composers, will no doubt be interested to hear of my encounter with the man who is perhaps the most notable [...]

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Haim Watzman I think it was my senior year in high school in which my friend Dave first discovered the truth. And since I was his best friend, he was determined to impart the truth to me as well. It was a cover story in Time magazine, I’m pretty sure, that set Dave off. It [...]

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Haim Watzman Here’s a brief update on what’s going on with Team Niot, the project to help learning disabled students that my family and I are setting up in memory of my son Niot. We are working on the project in cooperation with the Association for the Advancement of Education, an organization that runs Dror, [...]

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Haim Watzman “The air is unexpectedly cool and damp for early September when I emerge from Terminal 3 and cross over to the AirTrain. I’m alone and there are no human sounds, only the roar of traffic on the highway. Even that is muted as the elevator door shuts.” I look up from 60C on [...]

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Haim Watzman We passed him as we trudged up an earthen path in search of a Bronze Age site north of Montpellier in southern France. He had wispy hair and the soft contours of a man grandchildren love to cling to, but the steady stride of a good walker. Giving us a sideways glance, he [...]

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Haim Watzman And the Lord appeared to me by the sycamores of Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv as I sat at the door to my tent in the heat of the day, and I raised my eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by me. And when I saw them, I ran out to [...]

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Haim Watzman My friend from Kehilat Yedidya, Nir Levy, has been commemorating the current protest movement with a poem a day. Levy, who writes under the penname Nahir Libi, is the author of a fine first book of poetry, Mahol HaNefesh, which he’s also turned into an intriguing and moving show integrating readings of his [...]

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Haim Watzman The tent protesters who’ve shaken the complacence of the Israeli leadership these last few weeks combine, as most protest movements do, radicalism with reaction. That is, they call for sweeping changes in Israeli society and government, but they also hark back to a mythical golden time when, they believe, Israeli society was kinder [...]

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