Maya Arad is an Israeli-born writer, now living in California. She was born in 1971, so part of the same generation as Etgar Keret and Eshkol Nevo. Arad has published 11 works of fiction but The Hebrew Teacher, published in Israel in 2018, is her first to be translated into English. A book of three novellas, it has received acclaim from many leading writers including Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Allegra Goodman and Elif Batuman.
The title story, The Hebrew Teacher, is the most political and topical of the three. Ilana Goldstein has taught Hebrew at a small-town college in America for 40 years. Her life is turned upside down by an appointment in her department. It turns out that Yoad Bergman-Harari, like Ilana, born in Israel, is appalled by the new Israel. Ilana not only teaches Hebrew, she embraces her Jewishness, cooking classic Jewish food, observing the holidays (unlike her grown-up children). At first, she is baffled by Yoad’s politics but then cannot cope with his aggressive anti-Zionism.
But The Hebrew Teacher is not just about politics. It is about issues that run through the other stories. In each story the central character is a woman. Miriam is a grandmother in her seventies, visiting her son and his family, in California. Efrat, also lives in California, with her husband and two children.
These women face very human problems that many readers, perhaps especially women, will identify with. Miriam is estranged from her son, cannot connect with his wife, and cannot form the bond she longs for with her grandson. Efrat is worried about her daughter who is nearly 13. Libby is overweight, spoilt, and, most worryingly for her mother, has no friends at school.
