As we’ve mentioned on numerous occasions, the number of Israelis who have “day jobs” but who also invest the time and the talent to write books—fiction or non-fiction—never ceases to astound me. There’s an infatuation with the written word in this country, which is key to understanding the soul of this place. That’s why we cover books, but also music, poetry, journalism and the like.
The written work shapes this place, and explains it.
Some of the books these otherwise-employed people write are serious, others are playful. Everyone now and then, we get one that’s very playful (and incredibly creative and engaging), but in which, one senses, there’s also a deeper message lurking.
That might be true, as we’ll hear today, even if the author himself (a masterful Jewish educator doing cutting edge work) is not certain (or at least was initially was not certain) that that was his agenda. Alex Sinclar’s Everybody’s Hero (available on Alex’s website here) isn’t quite a “mystery”—after all, the novel is told through the voice of the vigilante himself. And yet, somehow, it packs a bundle of surprises as the end nears.
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A brief excerpt of our conversation with Alex Sinclair:
Alex Sinclair is Chief Content Officer at Educating for Impact, and an adjunct lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has written and spoken widely on Jewish education, Israel-Diaspora relations, and Israeli politics, in both academic and popular contexts. He has worked or consulted for many of the finest Jewish educational and communal institutions in North America, Europe and Israel.
Alex’s first book, published in 2013, Loving the Real Israel: An Educational Agenda for Liberal Zionism, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and his debut novel, Perfect Enemy, was published in 2023. He holds an M.A. (Oxon) and M.St. from Balliol College, Oxford, and a Ph.D. from Hebrew University.
To find out more about Alex, you can visit his website.
