Articles
My journalistic writing has evolved over the years, extending to various domains. I have written essays on poetry, texts for artists' catalogs, and recently found myself contributing comprehensive articles on the political situation to magazines in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Israel, and more. In Israel, I even published a collection of articles titled "An Eruption from the East: Revisiting the Emergence of the Mizrahi Artistic Explosion and Its Imprint on the Israeli Cultural Narrative 2006-2019," which secured various grants for its publication.
Berliner Zeitung, 2024
Ein Israeli in Berlin: Rachedurst im Gazastreifen lässt den Hass gedeihen
NY TID, 2024
Allt ar sonder
Information. 2024
Israelsk-jødisk digter: Vi har ladet os fange i en endeløs hadspiral, der skaber stadig større hævntørst
berliner zeitung. 2023
Wie kann man angesichts des katastrohalen Krieges in Gaza einen Sinn finden?
information, 2023
Måske har min datter en forudanelse om den afgrund, vi alle kan stå over for
Left Berlin. 2023
Everything is Broken: As an Israeli, I cry for the diminishing possibility of peace with Palestinians
Gyvemimas Per Brangus (Lithuania. 2023
IZRAELIETIS BERLYNE: „ŠIS KARAS, KAIP IR VISI KARAI PRIEŠ TAI, NĖRA SPRENDIMAS“
berliner zeitung, 2023
Ein Israeli in Berlin: „Dieser Krieg wird, wie alle Kriege zuvor, keine Lösung bringen“
analyse & kritik Zeitung für linke Debatte & Praxis, 2023
Eine echte Alternative
iNFORMATION, 2023
»Jeg er bange for, at Israel og Palæstina kan blive et nyt Irak eller Afghanistan«
tIP BERLIN, 2023
wIE ICH EIN TRANSNATIONALER dICTHER WURDE
Hagalil.com. 2023
Der kleine kurdische Schmuggler und der Jude aus Bagdad
Haaretz.com. 2023
It is increasingly important to resist the notion of one language for one people from movements that dream of a purity of race and culture.
hAGALIL mAGAZINE, 2023
Ein hebräischer Schriftsteller in Berlin
Stadtsprachen Magazine, 2023
sTADTSPRACHEN mAGAZINE, 2023
A Hebrew writer in Berlin: On a healing disintegration process
Berliner Zeitung. 2021
Joseph Beuys: Wie man einem toten deutschen Künstler die Hasenjagd erklärt
2021. Rozenberg Quarterly
Opening Words – On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV
Mantis: A journal of Poetry, Criticism & Translation, issue 19, 2021
Hebrew Writing in Berlin
Writing Hebrew in Berlin is not a standard category, such as writing English, French or Arabic in Berlin…
Wem gehört die deutsche Kultur und andere Texte und Gedichte, AphorismA VerlaG, Berlin 2020
Bleiben oder Wiederstehen
In den letzten Jahren tauche ich immer tiefer hinab in die Schatzkammern der deutschen Kultur. Ich lese und schreibe und denke über Fragen von Identität und Zugehörigkeit in Zeiten der israelischen und jüdischen Migration nach Deutschland nach. Zeiten, die im Grunde genommen 1743 mit der Ankunft Moses Mendelssohns in Berlin begannen. Gehört die deutsche Identität nur denjenigen, die einen deutschen Ausweis besitzen?
The Tel aviv REVIEW of books, 2020
“The non-German German”
In recent years, I have been diving deeper and deeper into the treasures of German culture. I read and write, thinking about questions of identity and belonging against the backdrop of Israeli and Jewish immigration to Germany, which, in literary terms, dates back to philosopher Moses Mendelssohn’s arrival in Berlin in 1743. Is German identity the exclusive property of German passport holders? Or is it plentiful enough to be shared with aficionados and non-citizen residents? In other words, is “Germanness” more than a question of nationality? Having spent the last six years in Berlin, as an immigrant encountering the local and other immigrant cultures, I have come to realise that the answer to this question is more multilayered than I thought.
Israel&palästina: zeitschrift für dialog. volume 1, 2o2o stimmen. aphorisma verlaG
Wie nethanjahus sohn zum helden einer antisemitischen deutschen partei wurde
Der Kampfgegen die Anderen vereint den Sohn des israelischen Ministerpräsidenten Yair Netanjahu mit mit der AfD. Das tut er im Windschatten seines Vaters, Der mit Vorliebe Bündnisse mit offenkundig anti-semitischen Autokraten schmiedet.
Mondoweiss, 2019 - ONGOING
opinions column
From 2019 I started to write articles for Mondoweiss, and online platform for news and opinions regarding Palestine, Israel & the United States. My articles deal with the Middle East from a progressive point of view. I hope to offer new Mizrahi and social perspectives.
Iton 77, 2020
An eruption from the east: Re visiting the emergence of the Mizrahi artistic explosion and it's imprint on the Israeli cultural narrative 2006-2019
The idea of editing a book of articles came when I realized that a specific period in my life had ended. This period was shaped by the Mizrahi voice that I expressed together with a new generation of artists and writers, through endless performance activities in the periphery. Most articles were written during a single decade, 2006-2019. Israeli society has changed from one end to the other, and so have I. Dialectically, social hope has dissipated, and Mizrahi creativity has reached its zeniths.
To the online shop
Tohu Art MAGAZINE, 2019
How To Explain Hare Hunting To A Dead German Artist
Joseph Sassoon Semah, a Baghdad-born artist who now lives and works in Amsterdam, is about to embark on an extensive multi-site project, in Amsterdam, Jerusalem, and Baghdad. Berlin-based poet and author Mati Shemoelof talks with him about his years living as an artist in Israel versus being a Babylonian Jew and an artist in Europe. They discuss Judaism, diaspora, exclusion, and acts of concealment and building.
Read article | On Joseph Sassoon Semah’s book
BROADENING THE CONVERSATION
ARTICLES FOR the Jewish independent
From 2018 I started to write for the Jewish Independet magazine articles about the Jewish and Israeli life of Berlin. My writing is diverse and includes articles, interviews and columns.It is an Australian magazine.
“Eine Literaturkonferenz zur Erosion des Demokratischen”,2018
The Israeli Literary Diaspora
The rise of right-wing ideology in Israel has also influenced the literary scene. On 2015 “The Council for the Culture and Arts of the Lottery foundation” (In charge of organising the highest prize for literature in Israel - “The Sapir Prize”) decided that this prize belonged only to Israelis who had been living in Israel for the past 5 years.
Jalta Magazine, Neofelis Verlag, 2017
A Mizrahi in Berlin
Mizrahi Culture refers to the Arab-Jews descents who immigrate to Israel from Both the Islamic region of the Mashrak and the Maghreb. Being Mizrahi in Berlin is a new identity because most of the Jews here are European Ashkenazi Jews. Our parents and grandparents immigrated to Israel and we are the one who emigrated from Israel to Berlin.
Tel Aviv Museum, 2011
Alienated Past and Alienated Present: On the Engagement with Nightmarish Light
The exhibition “RealityTrauma” is centered - conceptually, cyclically, and concretely - on two notions: reality and trauma, which emerge connected like Siamese twins. In order to trace their meaning, one must first perform an initial (painful) surgical separation. The dissociation of the conjoined bodies will be performed in theory, only to reveal that we move in a concentric circle around the work, which, concurrently, moves in a concentric circle around us.