Israeli novelist Assaf Gavron will discuss his 2014 novel, The Hilltop, which explores the lives of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. He will focus on the background, the motives and the practice of researching and writing the novel.  Sharing photos that he took during his research in the West Bank settlements, Assaf will explain their history and importance in the current political climate and describe how and what he saw in his travels evolved into the fiction. Hailed as “the great Israeli novel” by Time Out Tel Aviv, The Hilltop has won acclaim from both sides of the political spectrum. Mordantly funny and deeply moving, this award-winning novel about life in a West Bank settlement has been hailed as “brilliant” (The New York Times Book Review) and “The Great Israeli Novel [in which] Gavron stakes his claim to be Israel’s Jonathan Franzen” (Tablet).

Assaf Gavron was Born in 1968, and published six novels (Ice, Moving, Almost Dead, Hydromania, The Hilltop and Eighteen Lashes), a collection of short stories (Sex in the cemetery), and a non-fiction collection of Jerusalem falafel-joint reviews (Eating Standing Up). His fiction has been translated into 12 languages. His latest English translation, The Hilltop, was published in 2014 by Scribner. Among the awards he won are the Israeli Prime Minister’s Creative Award for Authors, the Israeli Bernstein Prize for The Hilltop, the DAAD artists-in-Berlin fellowship in Germany, the Buch Fur Die Stadt award in Germany for CrocAttack and the Prix Courrier International award in France for the same novel. His fiction was adapted for the stage in Habima – Israel’s national theatre, and five of his novels were optioned for film or TV by Israeli and international film producers. As a translator of fiction, Gavron is responsible for the highly-regarded English-to-Hebrew translations of J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories, Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint and Jonathan Safran Foer’s novels, among others. Gavron was the chief writer of the prize-winning computer game Peacemaker and has contributed to numerous newspapers and magazines in Israel and around the world. He is the founder of Israel’s national writers’ and poets’ soccer team. He teaches creative writing in universities in the US and in Israel. He is the singer and main songwriter of cult pop group The Foot and Mouth. The group released five albums, six years apart from each other. The next album will be out in 2019. Son of English immigrants, he grew up in a small village near Jerusalem, and currently lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. He lived in the US, UK, Canada and Germany.

There is no fee, but please RSVP for planning purposes. This event is held virtually on Zoom. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event. For more information, contact Program Director Ilene Tatro at itatro@cbisd.org.

CSP Partners: Beth Israel (San Diego, CA), Congregation Beth Shalom (Seattle, WA), Congregation B’nai Tzedek (Fountain Valley, CA), Congregation B’nai Israel (Tustin, CA), Jewish Collaborative of Orange County, CA, Temple Bat Yahm (Newport Beach, CA), Temple Beth El of South Orange County (Aliso Viejo, CA), Temple Beth Emet (Anaheim, CA), Temple Beth Ohr (La Mirada, CA), Temple Beth Tikvah (Fullerton, CA), Temple Beth Shalom (Needham, MA), Temple Beth Sholom (Santa Ana, CA), Temple Emanuel (Newton, MA), Town & Village Synagogue (NYC, NY), University Synagogue (Irvine, CA) & Valley Beth Shalom (Encino, CA)