Hillel Halkin - Literary Career

Literary Career

Halkin translates from Hebrew and Yiddish literature into English. He has translated Sholem Aleichem's Tevye the Dairyman, and major Hebrew and Israeli novelists, among them Yosef Haim Brenner, S. Y. Agnon, Shulamith Hareven, A. B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, and Meir Shalev.

His first book, Letters to an American Jewish Friend: A Zionist's Polemic, was published in 1977. In it, he presents a case for why Americans should immigrate to Israel.

Halkin’s second book, Across the Sabbath River, is a work of travel literature in which he goes in search of the truth behind the mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes. Since then he has written A Strange Death, a novel based on the local history of Zikhron Ya'akov, where he resides, and an intellectual biography of Yehuda Halevi, which won a 2010 National Jewish Book Award.

In 2012, Halkin published his first novel, Melisande! What Are Dreams? The critic D. G. Myers described it as a “unique and moving study of marriage, a love letter to conjugal love.”

Halkin writes frequently on Israel and Jewish culture and politics. His articles have been published in Commentary, The New Republic, The Jerusalem Post and other publications. Under the pseudonym "Philologos," he writes a weekly column on Jewish languages in The Forward. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Jewish Review of Books.