Writing in Hebrew

A new story and a staged reading

Dear readers,

I arrived in Israel in late 1978 for what I thought would be a single year (see “The Importance of Low Expectations”). The first stop was a three-month ulpan, an intensive Hebrew language course, in Kiryat Shonah, right up by the borders with Lebanon and Syria. I already had what might be called an adolescent crush with the Hebrew language. Like a young lover, I was much better at talking avidly about Hebrew than engaging it in conversation.

The three months I spent in ulpan were followed by nine more in Hatzor Hagelilit, a half-hour’s drive south on Route 90 (See A Crack in the Earth). For me, one of the attractions of this poverty-stricken town was that there were virtually no native English speakers there and not many who could speak the language beyond an elementary level. I would have no choice but to speak the language. On top of that, I subscribed to a daily newspaper in easy Hebrew and forbade myself to get my news from any other source during the week.

I ended up making my home in Israel, for reasons I related in the first chapter of my first book (see Company C). And, being a writer, and having made that decision, I set my sites on writing in the language of my adopted county.

My early attempts are better forgotten. It took a long time before I found my unique voice in Hebrew—to do that I needed to acquire the necessary Hebrew vocabulary and to fashion a style of my own based on a familiarity with Hebrew literature (see “What Would Brenner Say?”). But I kept trying, even during the years when raising a family and the need to make a living left me with little time to write.

By the time I wrote my play The Chair, it felt like English was the foreign language, the one in which I was having trouble expressing myself because the story I was telling and the characters I created were so rooted in Israel. When the play received a staged reading [link] in October 2023, the director and actors felt the same way. That was confirmed when I had the play translated by Dory Parnes. When I read his fine Hebrew version, I was convinced that I should and could have written it in Hebrew myself.

So I made the switch. I’ve been writing plays and short stories in Hebrew. It feels like I’ve come home in a very literal sense because, even as I was writing in English, I was speaking Hebrew at home.

Ironically, I’m writing this English newsletter to notify you, my loyal English-language readers, about the first fruits of this new stage in my writing career. My story “Correlation Is Not Causation” appears in the current issue of the National Library of Israel’s on-line literary magazine, Mosach. (There’s a link there to hear it in audio as well, read by the talented Shir-Raz Gorenberg.) A scene from a new play, Nekudat Motza (Starting Point) will be presented in a staged reading at the annual festival of the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv on Sunday, November 23, see the poster below.

I’ve been writing a lot these last two years—more stories than there are places to publish them, and works for the theater that I haven’t found homes for yet. I’m debating whether to launch a Hebrew newsletter to disseminate some of this material. I’d be interested to hear if any of you would want to be subscribers.

I’ve produced English versions of some of the short stories but haven’t figured out how I want to get those out to readers. I’ll let you know at a later date.

Haim