by The Israeli Institute for Hebrew Literature
Live Interviews with Israeli and Jewish Authors
Hosted by Jamie Denbo
A series of free Zoom conversations, highlighting the individuals behind the stories and bringing Hebrew and Jewish literature to life.
The events will showcase the New International Hebrew Literature Fund, which provides grants to foreign publishers focused on translating Hebrew literature. For more information and to donate, press HERE.
An Israeli in the U.S. — In Literature and in Life
Jamie Denbo in Conversation with Authors Tehila Hakimi and Joshua Cohen
Tehila Hakimi and Joshua Cohen's books engage directly with the cultural meeting/clashing between the two cultures — and it's complicated, funny, and deeply human. Cohen's Pulitzer-winning novel drops the Netanyahu family onto an American campus. Hakimi follows an Israeli woman in Middle America, drawn into the world of hunting. Both books capture the fascination, the friction, and the feeling of being caught between two worlds. Join us to talk about literature, identity, and the relationship between the two cultures.
Co-Executive Producer on four seasons of Grey's Anatomy and creator of Lifetime's American Princess. As an actor, over 100 credits including Orange Is the New Black and Curb Your Enthusiasm. For twelve years one half of the alt-comedy podcast Ronna & Beverly; now performs solo as “Beverly” worldwide. The (NEW) Beverly Podcast launched February 2026.
Described by the TLS as the author of “a singular debut novel”, and praised by Libération for the “quiet precision of prose”. Tehila Hakimi is a Jewish Book Council Award–winning fiction writer and poet whose work has appeared in translation in Lit Hub, Asymptote, World Literature Today, and The Poetry Review. A 2018 Fulbright International Writing Program Fellow at the University of Iowa.
Called “a major American writer” by the New York Times, and “an extraordinary prose stylist, surely one of the most prodigious at work in fiction today” by the New Yorker, Joshua Cohen is the author of numerous novels, as well as collections of short fiction and nonfiction. He was awarded the 2013 Matanel Prize, and in 2017 was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. The Netanyahus won the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction and the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
What to expect