MTA recently kicked off the eighth year of Meet the Israeli Author, an elective course for juniors, created by Director of Hebrew Language Tova Fish-Rosenberg.  The course, which is unique to MTA, provides students with the opportunity to work directly with an award-winning Israeli author via video-conference workshops conducted entirely in Hebrew. This one-of-a-kind experience enables students to not only develop their creative writing skills, but also to cultivate their Hebrew language skills at a higher level. 

Under the mentorship of Hebrew language instructor Liora Haibi, students work on crafting short stories written exclusively in Hebrew and participate in monthly video-conference workshops with award-winning Israeli author Chana Bat Shahar. Each workshop focuses on a different element of story writing development. Students come prepared to the workshops with segments of the stories they are writing that correspond with the monthly topic. Bat Shahar provides constructive critiques on each student’s work, allowing them to reshape their stories based on her expert feedback. 

The course culminates with the printing of the student’s completed stories in a journal, which is housed in the publication room at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem.  Each year, the program begins with a journal presentation to course participants from the previous year as well as remarks by MTA Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Michael Taubes and Head of School Rabbi Joshua Kahn, followed by an introduction for students currently enrolled in the course to Bat Shahar via video conference. This year’s students, Yonatan Chudnoff, David Hazan, Nadav Heller and David Kohanchi, are excited to begin their work with Bat Shahar and Haibi, who won the regional Grinspoon Award for Excellence in Jewish Education for her work on Meet the Israeli Author. This course is generously sponsored by Arielle and Donny (‘02) Rosenberg.