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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Haim Watzman Break free of your computer monitor and get some SoJo in person! Gershom and I will both be making trips to the U.S. in the coming months. It’s an opportunity to ask your synagogue, JCC, college, army unit, or think tank to have us over to give you our take on current events [...]

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Haim Watzman The summer of my crush on Muffy was a summer of disparate parts (I had read a poem by Henry Reed). There were no centers to hold (we did Yeats in 20th-century lit class). I had just finished my junior year at Duke University and I was part of a quaternity (I had [...]

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Gershom Gorenberg In service to our readers and to researchers, I’ve started creating a new online archive of historical documents – this one of historical documents that I found in the process of researching my new book, The Unmaking of Israel. First up: the missing epilogue of the Irgun history of its armed struggle against [...]

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Haim Watzman I am impressed. You play like a Jew, Felix. What I mean by that is that you have Johann Sebastian Bach in your heart as well as in your fingertips. Please don’t tell your mother I said this. She would be upset to hear that she has not succeeded in bleaching Israel out [...]

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Haim Watzman The Sapir College faculty member who introduced Bruno Dumont’s Hadewijch, screened at this year’s Cinema South Festival in Sderot, said that Dumont seeks in his films to understand the intricacies and intimacies of religious faith. Hadewijch is a technically fine, formally intriguing film, one in which it is clear that the director has [...]

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Haim Watzman The quarter-moon hovers low on the horizon as Gadi speeds the pickup truck the length of the Jezreel valley. From the passenger seat I gaze up at the stars sparkling above the Hill of Moreh, where Gideon mustered his troops. It’s my second trip down the valley this night to the hospital in [...]

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The death of my younger son, Niot, has been a heavy blow to me and my family. As we approach the end of the 30-day mourning period, I have created pages in Hebrew and English containing a short biography of Niot as well as instructions about how to contribute to the two projects we are [...]

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