Introducing "A Sense of Israel"

Dear Friends:

One month ago, I was putting the finishing touches on a freelance writing job, and looking forward to getting to work on a second collection of poetry. I was eager to revisit the slips of paper I had been sliding into my desk drawer for some time, many of them scribbled with ekphrastic lines about the work of M.C. Escher, the Dutch graphic artist best known for his tessellations, impossible objects, and depictions of multiple levels of reality.

Then, suddenly, my life—all of our lives—became as convoluted and incomprehensible as an Escher print itself. I am an Israeli, and the child of Jewish Holocaust survivors. On October 7, my world was turned upside down and inside out.

In the weeks that followed, writing poetry became impossible. In fact, “impossible” seemed to describe almost everything in our lives here in Israel and throughout the Jewish world: an impossible terrorist attack, an impossible war to fight, an impossible level of hatred. Many of you, family and friends in the US and Europe, called and wrote out of deep concern, trying to make sense of the nonsensical.

And so I have begun this free newsletter, A Sense of Israel, which I will publish regularly. Through it, I hope to give you a sense of life in Israel, based on my observations as a writer, poet, and mother. I hope A Sense of Israel will offer more personal, considered, delicate stories than other Israel-related reading material. Most of all, I hope that its subjects can soon expand beyond the realm of war to focus on all that is alive and beautiful in Israel and our world.

Thanks for reading and sharing.

—Sheryl

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