The Hebrew Teacher: Three Novels
By Maya Arad. Translated by Jessica Cohen (New Vessel Press)

Devotees of Israeli literature may already be familiar with Maya Arad, considered one of the foremost Hebrew writers living today, and her most recently translated book, a compilation of three novellas—in order, the titular “The Hebrew Teacher,” “A Visit (Scenes)” and “Make New Friends”—offers many rewards. First among them are her richly drawn portraits of three Israeli women, each the main character of one novella.

Arad, a writer-in-residence at Stanford University, knows the terrain she vividly depicts. The first and second stories in the book take place in and around Palo Alto, Calif., home to Stanford, close to countless startups and a magnet for the tens of thousands of highly educated Israeli expats who have come to Silicon Valley hoping to make it big.

In “A Visit (Scenes),” Miriam is an octogenarian who visits the United States to meet her toddler grandson. She must parse a tense domestic situation between her son, an entrepreneur who has made a bad business decision, and his considerably younger wife, whose disappointment in her spouse oozes off the pages.

Arad captures the gestalt of the enclaves these Israelis have formed near Stanford, where it is not unusual to hear Hebrew spoken in the local grocery market and where, more quietly, expats struggle to find the right balance between their identities as comfortable Northern Californians and their frayed connections to their Israeli values.

As Efrat, a Stanford biologist and worrying mother to a middle-schooler in the third novella, “Make New Friends,” bemoans about her daughter, “The girl is almost thirteen, for God’s sake! When she was that age, it would never have occurred to her to make her mother get up to bring her stuff. She can’t remember anyone making her breakfast after age ten. She made her own school lunch, too. If she forgot, she went hungry. No one ran after her with a lunch bag.”

Yet the character most precipitously sitting on the cusp between an uncertain future and the comfort of the past is Ilana, the Hebrew teacher in the title story. For decades, Ilana has thrived as an adjunct professor at a large Midwestern university. But now she must confront certain realities: declining enrollment in Hebrew-language classes, shifting politics on campus and, most acutely, a new colleague who supports the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Arad wrote this story well before the current Israel-Hamas war, but she is strikingly prescient in her understanding of contemporary schisms, particularly as they pertain to Israel.

Ample credit should go to award-winning translator Jessica Cohen for her seamless work. She has helped make The Hebrew Teacher a must-read in 2024.

Robert Nagler Miller