About Adam L. Rovner

The linked stories in Yehudit Hendel’s recent collection, The Empty Place (HaMakom HaReik (2007)], are set in Tel Aviv’s Dubnov Garden. There, on park benches and along pathways, her characters struggle to connect with one another and understand themselves. Though … Read More

Alongside established writers, Zeek takes special pleasure in featuring up-and-coming Israeli talents whose work has not yet received an American readership. This month’s story, from Yoav Avni’s first collection Those Strange Americans, speaks to the intractable struggle between young lovers, … Read More

Noted Israeli literary critic and editor Menachem Perry considers Yossel Birstein one of the “greatest Jewish writers of the twentieth century, on a par with Kafka and Agnon.” Both for his range of forms and genres and for his multilingual … Read More

Zeek offers readers a unique example of literary and cultural translation with this month’s story, “Boy,” written by Israeli-Arab writer Riad Beidas. Beidas’ work frequently treats the tensions felt by Israeli-Arab citizens. “Boy” was translated by Mohammed Alghbban, a Saudi … Read More

This January marks the beginning of the third year of Zeek’s initiative to make contemporary Hebrew literature available in English translation to readers worldwide. The last two years have featured more than two dozen stories, excerpts, and poems from some … Read More

Author Gilad Meiri formed the collective Kvutzat Ktovet with a like-minded group of young writers in Jerusalem in 2002. Despite an evolving roster of participants, Kvutzat Ktovet has continued to adhere to its social-communitarian mission of bringing writing workshops, literary … Read More

Alona Kimhi’s startling novel, Lily La Tigresse, reflects a fun-house vision of contemporary Israel. The grotesque, darkly comic and fantastic tale surely draws its inspiration from Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus, and no doubt from Val Lewton’s classic film … Read More

The World A Moment Later imagines a shadowy micronation developing in parallel to the state of Israel. This entity, the Abramowitz Estate, attracts talented misfits, half-crazed outcasts, and others disgruntled and marginalized by the Zionist establishment. Whether pioneer or party … Read More

As the days of awe draw near, we recite penitential prayers–selichot–to seek forgiveness for our transgressions. In religious neighborhoods of Jerusalem during the month of Elul, the streets and alleyways come alive with figures shuffling through the early morning darkness … Read More

The schlemiel–that bumbling, anxious, and cosmically inept antihero of much American Jewish literature–rarely finds his place in Israeli writing. Instead, modern Hebrew literature celebrates the mythic sabra, the altruistic, brave, and resourceful native-born Israeli. This is especially true in fiction … Read More