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Stuart Schoffman

Stuart Schoffman, a journalist and screenwriter, moved to Jerusalem in 1988. His latest translations of Israeli fiction are To the Edge of Sorrow (Schocken) by Aharon Appelfeld and The Tunnel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by A.B. Yehoshua.

Revisiting Hill 24

Revisiting Hill 24

Stuart Schoffman

The first movie I ever saw, not counting Dumbo, was Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer, a landmark black-and-white film about Israel’s War of Independence . . .

A Pinch of Levity

A Pinch of Levity

Stuart Schoffman

Is it true that three people are required to perfect a joke: one to tell it, one to get it, and a third not to get it? Stuart Schoffman tracks a single Jewish joke through multiple tellings.

The Hebrew Teacher

The Hebrew Teacher

Stuart Schoffman

After his baptism, Judah Monis observed the Christian Sabbath on Saturdays, giving rise to suspicion, and for 38 years taught mandatory Hebrew to rebellious students.

Was Lincoln Jewish?

Was Lincoln Jewish?

Stuart Schoffman

Abraham Lincoln became a saint for American Jews. But was he also "bone from our bone and flesh from our flesh"? One rabbi thought so.

Hollywood and Jerusalem

Hollywood and Jerusalem

Stuart Schoffman

It would be marvelous to tell you that right after the meeting I strode indignantly to my forest-green Porsche, wheeled onto the Santa Monica Freeway, sped eastward on I-10 past Palm Springs, and didn’t stop till I got to Jerusalem. But that would be untrue.

The Lowells and the Jews

Stuart Schoffman

Robert Lowell, the most famous poet in America, icon of the antiwar movement, consummate Boston Brahmin, was especially glad to speak with a Jewish group because, he drawled, “I’m an eighth, you know.” 

The Great Family Circle

The Great Family Circle

Stuart Schoffman

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, “the father of modern Hebrew,” famously raised his own son to be the first child in almost 2,000 years to speak only Hebrew. When Itamar Ben-Avi grew up, he was fascinated by . . . Esperanto. Esther Schor’s new book on L. L. Zamenhof, his would-be universal language, and those who still speak it inspired Stuart Schoffman to revisit the oddly parallel careers of Ben-Yehuda and Zamenhof.

Robert Capa’s Road to Jerusalem

Robert Capa’s Road to Jerusalem

Stuart Schoffman

By all accounts, his own not least, Robert Capa was a womanizer, a heavy drinker, and a compulsive gambler who consistently lost his shirt everywhere from poker games at the front lines to European casinos. He was also a gifted, prolific photographer.

A Stone for His Slingshot

A Stone for His Slingshot

Ben Hecht, Stuart Schoffman

In 1948 screenwriter Ben Hecht lectured “a thousand bookies, ex-prize fighters, gamblers, jockeys, touts,” and gangsters on the burdens and responsibilities of Jewish history. The night at Slapsy Maxie’s was a big success, but the speech was lost, until now.