About Haim Watzman

Haim Watzman is a Jerusalem-based writer, journalist, and translator, and co-author, with Gershom Gorenberg, of the South Jerusalem blog. He is the author of Company C: An American's Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2005) and A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel's Rift Valley (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2007). Haim was born in 1956 in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. After receiving a B.A. from Duke University he moved to Israel, where he has lived since 1978 and worked as a freelance translator and journalist. His translations include Tom Segev's The Seventh Million, Elvis in Jerusalem, and One Palestine Complete, as well as David Grossman's The Yellow Wind, Sleeping on a Wire, and Death as a Way of Life. As a journalist, he has written from Israel for The Chronicle of Higher Education, the British science journal Nature and other publications. Links to articles of interest can be found here. Haim currently writes the monthly Necessary Stories column for The Jerusalem Report. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Ilana, and four children: Mizmor, a student; Asor, a soldier; and Niot and Misgav, high school students. He is an active member of Kehilat Yedidya, a liberal Orthodox community equally concerned about democracy in Israeli society and traditional Jewish values. Contact Haim by e-mail at hwatzman@gmail.com. Photo of Haim Watzman by Debbi Cooper

A Reply To Rut: Why Jewish Dating Doesn’t Work

By Haim Watzman December 8, 2008

I have been following with amusement and bemusement the courtship ritual of Hebrewzzi in the comments to Mia Rut’s post To Date a Jew. But not with wistfulness. It’s been a quarter century since I had to play the dating … Read More

Arab Poetry for Jews: Sasson Somekh

By Haim Watzman December 2, 2008

"If we had soldiers read the poetry their enemies write, we could prevent war," declared Haim Gouri, an old poet and an old soldier, at Jerusalem’s literary cafĂ© Tmol Shilshom last night. Sasson Somekh, whose new memoir was the subject … Read More

Save a Writer–Buy a Book

By Haim Watzman November 26, 2008

"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 my first book, Company C were … Read More

Left Behind: Why A New Party Won’t Save Social Democracy in Israel

By Haim Watzman November 18, 2008

Ha’aretz has been going ga-ga over the impending new left-wing party that will incorporate Meretz, a few old Labor hands, and some literary figures who have long acted as the collective conscience of the Israeli left. The newspaper also devoted … Read More

Son Sacrifice: Humility and the Significance of the Akeda

By Haim Watzman November 13, 2008

Many years ago, when I lived at Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi, a storm erupted in synagogue on Shabbat Vayare-the Shabbat, like this coming one, on which we read the story of Akedat Yitzhak, the binding of Isaac. The shouts of anger … Read More

Sharon Dolin and the Music of Nature

By Haim Watzman November 12, 2008

One of my favorite poets, Sharon Dolin, has four poems up at Nextbook. The first, "Let Me Thrum (6 a.m.)" is a wonderful fresh and new version of "Nishmat Kol Hai," the poem of nature extolling God that we read … Read More