Culture and Ideas

The Chair Wins the Warsaw Jewish Theater Institute Award

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Haim Watzman

“The Theater Institute Award for Haim Watzman’s drama The Chair for: an intimate yet universal capture of Israel’s multicultural contemporary society; for showing invariably important and at the same time fundamental human problems, both in history and today. For boldly taking into account the importance of religious tradition, for noticing the role of women in history, tradition, and contemporary times, and for a well-thought-out composition of real and metaphorical space.”

— statement by Jadwiga Majewska of the Theater Institute (Instytut Teatralny im. Zbigniewa Raszewskiego) of Poland on my play, at the awards ceremony

My acceptance speech, which I was unable to give in person at the ceremony in Warsaw on January 16.

It is a great honor to have my play The Chair recognized with the Theater Institute Award of the Contemporary Jewish Drama International Competition sponsored by the Estera Rachel and Ida Makinskie Jewish Theater in Warsaw. When I received the news last week I was so flabbergasted that I was sure that it must be a mistake. I felt like one of the Hebrew prophets receiving a vision from God and being totally clueless, just as Isaiah and Jeremiah were, about why they had been chosen.

Illustration by Avi Katz
That is very appropriate because The Chair is a melancholy comedy about a woman who receives a prophetic vision, not from heaven but from the neighbors she sees from her bedroom window. After escaping from an oppressive relationship with a man who loves her because she represents the oppressed workers he has devoted his life to saving, she wants only to be alone and never to love again. But the vision, not a divine but rather a very earthly and material one, finds the love that remains hidden deep within her. Her story parallels that of the biblical prophet Hosea, except that she plays the role not of Hosea but of Gomer, the low woman the prophet marries at God’s command and uses as a symbol of the sins of Israel.

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August Appearances

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Haim Watzman Dear readers, It’s a month of opportunities to hear me talk about translation and writing, two in Zoom and in English and one in person and in Hebrew. “Translating in Nabokov’s Shadow” is the third installment in a wonderful series on translation sponsored by the Tel Aviv Review of Books and the National … Read more

Never Ending Stories–essay in The Tel Aviv Review of Books

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Haim Watzman A plaint about the inordinate length of too many contemporary Israeli novels. “Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel,” Miss Prism, the governess, cautions her charge in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Through four decades of reading Hebrew novels, I have diffidently heeded the sage advice of this sterling Victorian … Read more

A Detour to Mars from the Jordan Valley — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

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Haim Watzman

A family in crisis after its first-grader skips school for a space trip.

illustration by Avi Katz
Paltiel held the plastic container up to the rays of the morning sun coming through the living room window. Transparent, with a close-fitting red lid, it was filled to the halfway point with what looked to be powdery sand, the kind that the hamsin winds blow up from the south each spring. The kind that is the bane of soldiers, that forms drifts against the hills of the Judean desert in which feet sink deep, making every step an effort and running impossible.

Heli’s lips were pursed angrily, and there were tears in her eyes. She stood erect, a few steps behind him, her fingers curled and rigid.
Yoav, their six-year-old, stood between them,… continue reading at The Times of Israel

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Doors — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

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Haim Watzman

Being alone and being together–Pesach in the time of Corona.

illustration by Avi Katz

The door opens just enough that I can see a single eye examining me. For a second, I can’t breathe. There’s something familiar about it. But the feeling passes.

Below, about waist high, another eye blinks at me, then lurches back, as if a hand belonging to the eye above has just yanked it.
“Who are you?” a woman’s voice accuses me.

“Yinon. Your neighbor.”

The little boy squeals.

“You’re the old man? You live next door?”

I wince at the description but acknowledge the fact. “You’ve seen me. But I don’t go out a lot, so maybe not much.”

“What do you want?”

I point at the floor. “There’s a package for you. From SuperPharm. It’s been out here since yesterday. Tonight is the holiday, the Seder. I thought you’d want to know.”

The eye glances down and the voice softens, just a bit. “Oh, thanks.” Then: “Don’t get any closer.”… continue reading at The Times of Israel

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How Long, My Lord? — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

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Haim Watzman

A prophetic Necessary Story. Except the prophet is a cat.

illustration by Avi Katz

After Isaiah 6

“I am a cat of unclean lips!”

I give the seraph with the live coal my most bellicose stare, the kind I usually save for when King of the Refuse Heap Ahaz perches himself on top of our frog-dumpster at 15 Nahum Lifshitz Street to make a speech. I’m not sure what the thing with the live coal is about, but it doesn’t look good.

“Also,” I point out, “I live among cats of unclean lips. We all eat garbage.”

The seraph keeps flapping its wings and its arms and its legs and gets closer and closer. “Your eyes have beheld the King Lord of Hosts,” she points out. “No other cat has ever been honored in this way.” … continue reading at The Times of Israel

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The Next to Last Time I Read Etgar Keret — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

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Haim Watzman

In which I ponder father-son relations while channeling Neil Young and Israel’s second-best writer of short fiction

illustration by Avi Katz
Avri turns the volume up from loud to deafening. I bang on his locked bedroom door with the hand holding my new copy of Fly Already.

“Turn it off!” I bellow. “And open up this door!”
“What the hell is going on in this house?” Etti shouts as she comes home from work. “Can’t a person get a little peace and quiet after a long day?”

I emerge from the hallway, intending to shout back, but instead I just stand there. I can’t speak because of the tears in my eyes… continue reading at The Times of Israel

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Read previous Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel. A complete Necessary Stories archive , including those that appeared in The Jerusalem Report, can be found here on South Jerusalem.

To receive an e-mail notification each time a new Necessary Story appears (about once every four weeks), sign up here

Necessary Stories, a collection of twenty-four of the best of Haim Watzman’s short fiction, is available as an e-book, paperback, and hardback on Amazon,

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Turning the Pages — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

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Haim Watzman

My kids don’t listen to me, my life’s total chaos, who will I vote for, and what is this music?

illustration by Avi Katz
Just as Ekatarina instructed, I walk unobtrusively on to the YMCA concert stage after the performers receive their applause. I sit down on the chair behind Bashkirova’s bench. It’s easy, Ekatarina said, no one will even know you’re there. Just follow along and turn the pages. Don’t let your mind wander. Bashkirova has a nasty left kick when she takes her foot off the soft pedal… continue reading at The Times of Israel

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Read previous Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel. A complete Necessary Stories archive , including those that appeared in The Jerusalem Report, can be found here on South Jerusalem.

To receive an e-mail notification each time a new Necessary Story appears (about once every four weeks), sign up here

Necessary Stories, a collection of twenty-four of the best of Haim Watzman’s short fiction, is available as an e-book, paperback, and hardback on Amazon,

Read more

Meeting on a Rock — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

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Haim Watzman

Two estranged friends discover that they betrayed each other one night decades ago.

Illustration by Avi Katz
Snir bit glumly into his eggplant-and-tahini sandwich and squinted at the sun hanging over the line of mountains to the east. He sat atop a train-car-sized gray-green granite rock that a primeval upheaval had cast on top of another just like it on the peak of Monsanto, the sacred mountain where the Knights Templar had built a massive fortress to hold the line against the Moors. … continue reading at The Times of Israel

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Read previous Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel. A complete Necessary Stories archive , including those that appeared in The Jerusalem Report, can be found here on South Jerusalem.

To receive an e-mail notification each time a new Necessary Story appears (about once every four weeks), sign up here

Necessary Stories, a collection of twenty-four of the best of Haim Watzman’s short fiction, is available as an e-book, paperback, and hardback on Amazon,

Read more

The Chair — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

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Haim Watzman

What you see and what you might unexpectedly get by gazing through rear windows at election time

illustration by Avi Katz
It seemed like an odd place to die, in a hard wooden chair placed in front of a back-facing bedroom window.

“I told you that nothing is to be moved,” Ofek had ordered while showing the apartment, when I tried to place it next to the wall so that I could take in the view. “Especially the chair.”

“And the sign?” I said nervously, looking down on the big black banner hanging from the outside railing. From the outside it couldn’t be missed. It depicted the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef … continue reading at The Times of Israel

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To receive an e-mail notification each time a new Necessary Story appears (about once every four weeks), sign up here

Necessary Stories, a collection of twenty-four of the best of Haim Watzman’s short fiction, is available as an e-book, paperback, and hardback on Amazon,

Read more

The Performance — Necessary Stories in The Times of Israel

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Haim Watzman

I’m back in the shuk with my new story, but with a different subject. This time it’s about a couple doing political street theater, and how their message gets across, or doesn’t.

illustration byAvi Katz
The little square down the stairs from the Iraqi shuk seemed like just the spot. There was a ready-made audience—the tourists and Tel Avivians eating at the trendy-authentic Azoura restaurant on one side and the old Sephardi men playing backgammon in the dilapidated clubhouse on the other. The Jewish hawkers and their Arab workers at the stands selling greens and oranges, and the old ladies and student couples picking out produce, provided a low-level hubbub of voices better than any background music. Matan and Michal put out their hat, unpacked their backpacks, and began their performance. Continue reading at The Times of Israel

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To receive an e-mail notification each time a new Necessary Story appears (about once every four weeks), sign up here

Necessary Stories, a collection of twenty-four of the best of Haim Watzman’s short fiction, is available as an e-book, paperback, and hardback on Amazon,

Read more

Back to Gaza — Necessary Stories at The Times of Israel

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I’m pleased to announce that my Necessary Stories have found a new home at The Times of Israel!

Haim Watzman

illustration by Avi Katz
Michael gropes for the handkerchief he’s sitting on and wipes the sweat from the top of his head, the whole area encircled by the fringe of brown-flecked white hair that crowns his head like a withering laurel wreath. He’s back for his volunteer day of driving Gazans for medical treatment in Israel. The Erez checkpoint, on the border, comes into view. He hears chanting, a Hebrew slogan shouted through a megaphone, a woman’s voice, but he can’t make out the words. The demonstrators are in the designated spot, just outside the checkpoint’s perimeter. Allowing himself just a sip from the flask he keeps in the car door, he slows down and glances at his cell phone. Sister Nabila. That’s the name the Road to Recovery organization gave him. She will be accompanying an orphan who needs medical treatment in Israel.

Read the whole story at The Times of Israel

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