Lazarre Seymour Simckes

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Dec 11, 2024, 12:06 AM

The Loss of My Hebrew Name in Israel

When I applied for an Israeli ID and passport as a new immigrant in 2017 the Israeli immigration official told me that I could not use the Hebrew name that had been given to me at birth in America,...

Aug 22, 2024, 9:33 AM

The Jewish Naqba

Memorializing catastrophe is not an exclusively Arab tradition. The Jewish term for catastrophe is hurban, which means destruction. The hurban of Jewish history includes not just the destruction of the two Temples but the loss of Jewish sovereignty and...

Oct 14, 2023, 8:37 PM

As is its name, so it is

The word "hamas" means violence in Hebrew. Genesis 6:13 cites violence as the reason for the destruction of the world in the days of Noah. וַיֹּ֨אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֜ים לְנֹ֗חַ קֵ֤ץ כׇּל־בָּשָׂר֙ בָּ֣א לְפָנַ֔י כִּֽי מָלְאָ֥ה הָאָ֛רֶץ חָמָ֖ס מִפְּנֵיהֶ֑ם וְהִנְנִ֥י .מַשְׁחִיתָ֖ם אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ But the...

Jun 20, 2023, 1:08 PM

The Wandering Israeli

While waiting to see my doctor I stood in the small courtyard outside the building to avoid catching the plague. A thin man who turned out to be 50 years old as of today emerged from the building and...

Jun 20, 2023, 6:45 AM

A Snapshot of Israeli parenting

I saw a father in his forties picnicking in the park with his two young sons, one boy about four and the other eight. The boys kept spilling bits of couscous and schnitzel onto the grass but this didn’t bother the father. I...

Jun 19, 2023, 7:32 PM

Useful at any Age in Israel

This morning I felt so alone as a solitary immigrant I had to find someone to talk to. I went to the park near my building but all I found there were two people seated on a bench, a...

Jun 18, 2023, 10:25 PM

A New Reason For My Aliyah

The weekend train to Modi’in was crowded. I could not find a seat. I stood in the aisle and held tightly onto my suitcase. Suddenly a man in his early fifties with a tanned face told his teenage son...

Jun 16, 2023, 11:48 PM

A Preview of Coming Attractions For Olim

A few days before I made Aliyah to Israel I encountered a little Israeli girl on a Yale shuttle bus who prefigured the high energy of the Israeli spirit I would soon face on a daily basis as a...

Jun 15, 2023, 10:37 PM

Apartment Hunting in Tel Aviv as a New Immigrant

On the day I left America to become a new immigrant in Israel at age 79, I asked a group of State Troopers at JFK airport to memorialize my decision. Here is the photograph, with their faces masked to...

Jun 14, 2023, 6:36 AM

The Source of Joseph’s Dreams

Joseph’s two dreams of grandeur at age seventeen in Parashat Vayeshev, in which he symbolically sees his family bow down to him, are traditionally considered by biblical scholars and rabbinic commentators alike as prophetic, foretelling what occurs much later...

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About Me

Playwright, novelist, psychotherapist and translator from the Hebrew, Lazarre Seymour Simckes is a graduate of Harvard College, Stanford University, and Harvard University. He has taught literature and creative writing courses at Harvard, Yale, Williams, Vassar, Brandeis, Tufts, and abroad as a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Writer at Haifa University. He has also conducted a live, interactive writing workshop, delivered via satellite, linking Israeli Jewish and Arab high school students with their counterparts in America.