Maya Arad’s latest trio of novellas, recently published in English translation as The Hebrew Teacher, all concern Israelis who, like herself, live in the United States. In her review, Allegra Goodman finds them all rewarding, but the best is a biting academic satire that features a professor of Jewish literature who hates the Jews:

The first time I laughed out loud was on page eleven, when Ilana Goldstein, the titular Hebrew teacher, . . . meets the newly minted professor of Hebrew and Jewish literature at her midwestern university. Yoad Bergman-Harari . . . had “been born Yoad Harari, but during his university studies he’d added on his father’s original name, Bergman.” In her innocence, Ilana asks why. “‘To negate the negation of the diaspora,’ he replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.”

Arad is pitch perfect as she captures Yoad’s arrogance, his interest in problematizing literature rather than reading or teaching it, and his determination to distance himself from Jewish literature and culture in particular. Of course, the more unlikeable Yoad seems, the more attractive he becomes to Ilana’s chair. How he will keep Yoad here is his main concern.

Valiantly, Ilana carries on with her Israel independence celebration in the face of activists with a Palestine Liberation Organization flag and signs declaring “Remember Nakba Day” and “Support Palestine.” In protests that now seem almost quaint, campus activists craft a BDS petition signed by faculty, including Yoad, and published in the campus paper.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.