Made in Israel
The Jerusalem Review
Near East Affairs
www.thejerusalemreview.com
Reviewed by Pnina Moed Kass

Of course we export oranges, irrigation equipment, flowers, and a wide multitude of products of which I am not even aware. But I do know that in the broadest sense of the word “export” we send out, beyond our shores, a wonderful variety of objects that are the result of pure brain power. Needless to say, some of these exports are expressed in specific products; it can be medical equipment, agricultural innovations or computer technology breakthroughs. These need export licenses, but one group of exports that need no license are the cultural expressions of our society, the brain wedded to the aesthetic, the canvas, the stage, the printed page. One of the most impressive examples has just reached my desk – The Jerusalem Review.  

The issue I received is 240 pages of texts written in English, or translated into English. These pages are a veritable banquet of food for the intellect; essays by A.B.Yehoshua and Gabriel Moked, poems by two Druze poets, a long novella by Yoram Kaniuk, and a section with works by Jewish writers from the U.S.A. and Britain. The Review is not only distributed to subscribers both in Israel and abroad but to Judaica libraries worldwide and to distinguished Jewish and non-Jewish writers and literary magazines. My enthusiasm can be explained by the simple fact that there is very little out there of intellectual weight that addresses an English-language audience eager to enter the cultural-literary world of Jewish culture and of Israel in particular. Bravo to The Jerusalem Review!

Note: I just subscribed and will be receiving this mind-dazzler of a read twice a year.