Haim Sabato — Adjusting Sights

Rounding out our 4-part series with Jeffrey Saks on “War, Writing & Remembrance” we will read Haim Sabato’s novel of the Yom Kippur War “Adjusting Sights”:

“The commander shouted: ‘Gunner, pray! We’re taking fire!’ I prayed. There wasn’t a hair’s breadth then between my heart and my lips. I had never prayed like that before.”

50 years since that 1973 war, as a surprise Yom Tov attack reminds us that past is prologue, we’ll discuss this most authentic and affecting novel of that near calamitous war. In depicting the challenge to faith at the frontlines during a crucible moment in Israel’s history, Rav Sabato was compared to S.Y. Agnon. What did that frequent comparison get right and what did it overlook? How does this important contemporary Hebrew novel serve as a lens through which we can all consider the challenges of faith and trauma as individuals and as a nation?

Thursday, December 7 at 7:00pm Israel (= Noon EST) on Zoom