Haim Watzman
“It’s a very ugly time in American publishing,” my agent wrote to me. I had just received my semiannual statement from my publisher, which informed me that a total of 716 paperback copies of Company C: An American’s Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel were sold in the year after that edition came [...]

[Read more →]

Haim Watzman
At the end of July I was privileged to attend the Sami Rohr Prize Literary Institute, where I spent three stimulating days with the other prize finalists and judges. We were each asked to offer a short presentation about our favorite book of all time. I panicked–I like too many books, and too many [...]

[Read more →]

Haim Watzman
Last month I published an essay in the Jewish Chronicle of London in which I asserted that something is missing from most of the literature being produced by and about Jews today: “What I seek are books that, without being bound by conventions of religion and history, nevertheless use familiarity with and respect for [...]

[Read more →]

Haim Watzman
What should Jewish literature try to achieve? My essay in the current issue of The Jewish Chronicle of London offers some thoughts on the subject:
A wistful passage from the final chapter of the Mishnah’s Sotah tractate states, in poetic Hebrew: Nifteru ziknei Yerushalayim ve-halchu lahen. In more prosaic English, it might be [...]

[Read more →]