Many years ago, I had the great honor of 4 days of small-group learning with Yossi Klein-HaLevi, the activist-journalist whose current podcast on the war in Israel should be required listening. Just a couple of years after the Second Intifada, he chose to use music as the basis of his teaching on Israel, providing each of us with three “mix CDs.” It is to my deep sadness that those three CDs, and their extensive liner notes, have been lost to the vagaries of time and two cross-country moves. But, in addition to some still favorite songs, I learned from him the ways in which Israeli music–like other Israeli culture–expresses the hopes and fears of the moment, perhaps more immediately than any other form of culture. Take, for example, the story of this year’s Eurovision contestant–Eden Golan. The song with which she won Israel’s competition was entitled October Rain, and its lyrics make clear that [...]

I recently watched two different Israeli television series set in contemporary Israel, though all set well before October 7. In classic Israeli television fashion, both series star Doron Ben-David of Fauda, but that is besides the point. One, entitled The Lesson, is based on a true story and won the best series award at the Cannes International Series Festival in 2021. Called Zero Hour in the original Hebrew and set in a high school in the city of Kfar Saba, the series begins with a confrontation between an outspoken student and her civics teacher about whether or not local Arabs should be allowed at the municipal pool. With this explosive beginning, the series shies away from almost no conversation of Israeli society: racism, politics, the IDF, morality, fatphobia, Arab-Israeli tensions, and social media are all brought into the conversation—often with typical Israeli bluntness. The second series was one called Asylum City, based on a novel [...]

One of my own reactions to October 7 and its aftermath has been an almost obsessive need to connect with Israeli culture and language. I have watched almost exclusively Israeli television, listened to Israeli music, and, I signed myself up for Ulpan, a twice-weekly conversational Hebrew course. Those hours of just hearing the sounds of Hebrew have comforted me, given me strength, and connected me to Israel from so far away.Having spent most of my academic time with Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, diving deep into modern Hebrew is a delight. I love the connections—the way that ancient Hebrew expands to fit today’s needs, the way that English becomes Hebraicized when no other word will do, and the way that Arabic is so easily adopted into everyday conversation. More than other languages I have studied, Hebrew feels so vibrant and alive, and so very encapsulating of all that I love—and that [...]