Stories for the Heartbroken

Dear readers,

Just a quick note to longtime readers who’ve been wondering where I’ve disappeared to, and to my many new subscribers and followers. It’s been a tough summer here in Israel, all the more so since we received the awful news about the six hostages that were murdered by Hamas and who, so it seems, could have been saved by a hostage deal that our government refused to pursue. One of them was our neighbor Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose picture is still pasted on every street corner here in Baka.

I’ve been working hard on a new play that is set in Baka, in the home of a modern Zionist religious family. The time is the Shabbat/Simhat Torah holiday, October 6 and 7, of last year. I’ve written it in Hebrew because I can’t imagine how I could do so in English. It’s called הרופאה לשבורי לב; the best English rendering I can think of is The Doctor for the Heartbroken.

The inspiration comes from one of my favorite plays, George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House, which he wrote during the dark days of World War I. Shaw’s play starts off like a drawing room comedy but grows ever more ominous and surrealistic. My play, while quite different, adopts that template. Right now a second draft is being read by some directors and playwrights I know; I hope later this fall to have a final version. And then will begin the hard work of finding a theater to produce it.

As the readers read, I am pondering the war stories I wrote last summer and thinking about how I might continue the series. I gave a reading of one of them, “Akatziya,” at an event sponsored by Jerusalism at the end of March. They’ve now posted a transcript of the conversation I had with Lonnie Monka after reading the story, on Fiction and War.

I don’t have a new story or essay to offer you this month. But a couple old ones seem relevant to our times. “Besieged,” from September 2016, exactly eight years ago, is about a prostitute’s encounter with an Israeli soldier during the War of Independence. It portrays a moment of despair much like the ones we feel today.

So does “Rescue,” a story from ten years ago, about a woman who gives an Arab refuge during the bloody 1929 riots in Jerusalem. My friend Annabelle Landgarten, a talented storyteller and actress, is currently performing an adaptation. See her Telling Tales Facebook page for information about upcoming shows. “Rescue,” by the way, can also be found in my Necessary Stories collection.

The illustrations for “Besieged” and “Rescue” are by the talented illustrator Avi Katz. The illustration for “Akatziya” is by my talented daughter Mizmor Watzman.

Besorot tovot,

Haim