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Jewish Book Council Essays & Witnessing Series
From the Jewish Book Council:
“These pieces are part of an ongoing series that we will be sharing in the coming days from Israeli authors, based in Israel and abroad. It is critical to understand history not just through the books that will be written later, but also through the first-hand testimonies and real-time accounting of events as they occur. At Jewish Book Council, we understand the value of these written testimonials and of sharing these individual experiences. It’s more important now than ever to give space to these voices and narratives." These pieces can all be found on the Jewish Book Council's website.
* The views and opinions expressed in these pieces are those of the authors, based on their observations and experiences.
The Words We Wear After October 7th
Esh Hadaya
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No One Knows
Jennifer Lang
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A Soul Without a Body is not a Human Being
Marcela Sulak
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The Before Birthdays
Janine Schloss
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Return
Yardena Schwersky
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A Star Has Six Corners
Talya Jankovits
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Five Years Ahead and Roots: Two Accounts from October 7th
Nicole Hazan, ReGrow Israel, Zamir Haimi, Moran Friebach
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Complicated Fruit
Leslea Newman
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This is Where We Are Now
Stacy Nockowitz
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The Year the Jewish Poets Disappeard
Jehanne Debrow
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A Hebrew Poet of Muslim Spain Reads the New York Times: Angel of Death
Richard Chess
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Tikkun and Hineni: My Aunt as a Guiding Light
Haviva Ner-David
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I Stood Close as Targets Do
Rachel Neve Midbar
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A Lake of Stars
Zeeva Bukai
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That Time
Linda Stern Zisquit
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We All Have to Comfort Each Other
Gila Green
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In Borrowed Clothes
Merri Ukraincik
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You Only Go Up To Israel for the First Time Once in Your Life
Shawn A. Weiss
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A Belief in Order
Owen Lewis
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If I Forget Thee
Leslea Newman
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Meeting a Survivor
Jonathan Dunsky
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Thin Ice
Gili Haimovich
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The Next Time There’s a Holocaust, You’ll Come: Notes on Jewish Resilience
Eric Rasmussen
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A Prayer on this Rosh Hashanah
Molly Ritvo
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Words Are All That I Have: A Found Poem
Erika Dreifus
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All of Us Sitting on That Bench
Geula Geurts
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At the Jerusalem Café
Leslea Newman
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Help Me Remember, Hafiz, When Aill I Can See is Nir Oz
Diane Gottlieb
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Living History
Deborah Kotz
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Things I saw at the Nova Exhibit
Abby Horowitz
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Our Fig Tree
Matthew Goldberg
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Sestina
Rachael Sevitt
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October 7: A Journey of Safety, Faith, and Care in Our Daughter’s Jewish Group Home
Vickie Rubin
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Yellow
Liza Libes
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The Trouble With Evil
Evonne Marzouk
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But How Are You Managing?
Joan Leegant
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April, 2024
Harriet Shenkman
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How to Plant
Tamarah Touvian
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Be-hatzi Ha-layla
Deena Glickman
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Stumbling Towards Yom HaZikaron
Vivian Cohen-Leisorek
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Fighting Antisemitism with Small Acts of Kindness
Leanne Lieberman
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The Other Side
Amos Lavi, Nicole Hazan, ReGrow Israel
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We Are No Longer Welcome
Yardenne Greenspan
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The October 7th Haggadah
Vivian Cohen-Leisorek
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How to War: A Manual
Deena Glickman
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Hauntings: Looking Back at Fall 2023
Abby Horowitz
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The 1970s Jewish Multiverse
Don Futterman
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How to Pray for Hostages
Ruth Ebenstein
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Fragments from Here or the Before and the After: October to November 2023, Tel Aviv
Dara Barnat
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Backstory: A Translator and Her Author
Anne Landau
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Love Song
Amiram Cooper, David Arkin
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Caring for the Dead During War
Diana Bletter
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The Other Side of the Rain
Haviva Ner-David
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Sewing Machine
Shoshana Vegh
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Slowing It Down, Making It Up
Leon Wiener Dow
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Shelter Tales
Caroline Goldberg Igra
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Diasporic Nostalgia
Gili Haimovich
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A Thinking Heart in This Waking Nightmare
Haviva Ner-David
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No AI Can Replace Yocheved Lifshitz
Lali Michaeli
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Kislev, on the Way to Hebron
Eliaz Cohen, Larry Barak
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How my Town has Changed
Jonathan Dunsky
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Tunnels of Reality and the Information War
Michael Simkin
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Two Poems from These Burning Days
Eliaz Cohen, translated by Larry Barak
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Below Sea Level
Julie Gray
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A Nation Running From Bad News
Ilana M. Blumberg
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Things Keep Spinning
Illana M. Blumberg
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Night Shift
Jonathan Dunsky
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Shelter
Haim Watzman
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Making Chocolate for My Son
Sarah Sassoon
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Its About Time to Talk About Shadows
Lior Maayan
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Letters From the Desert
Janice Weizman
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Books of the Dead
Haim Watzman
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Why Am I Enraged?
Helen Joyce
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Speaking Hebrew in Secret: Being an Israeli Abroad
Maya Tevet Dayan
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Take us to see the Mona Lisa Uncle Moshe!
Moshe Sakal
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Cold Water
Haim Watzman
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My Two Lost Epiphanies
Edna Noy
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The Israeli-Arab Gardener
Luca M Damiani
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Nobody Knocked on Our Roof
Lali Michaeli
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Bread, Books, and Perseverance
Jonathan Yavin
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Again
Adi Wolfson
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Kibbutz Nir Or: An Oasis in Which One Could Imagine an Endless Expanse of Life
Sarai Shavit
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Excerpt: As Figs in Autumn
Ben Bastomski
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Just like the Soul Returns to the Body
Yaara Shehari
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The Land of the Screaming Silence
Einat Nathan
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Massacre and Pizza
Jessamyn Hope
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We Will Survive
Aviva Gat
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A Night Funeral
Jonathan Dunsky
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That They Be Safe in the Land
Ilana M. Blumberg
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To Keep a Level Head
Haim Watzman
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I Am Lying to My Children
Noa Yedlin
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