Articles & Essays
My journalistic writing has evolved over the years, extending into various fields. I have written essays on poetry, texts for artists’ catalogues, and, more recently, comprehensive articles on the political situation for magazines in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Israel, and beyond. In Israel, I 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 received various grants to support its publication. In 2026, my first collection of essays in German, Fünfzehn Narben, was published by AphorismA Verlag.
dER FREITAG, 2026
Brief an Israels rechtsextremen Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir: Wir zwei mizrachischen Juden ...
2026, Der Freitag
Auswanderungswelle erfasst Israel: Droht der zionistische Traum zu zerbrechen?
2026, information magazine
Hvem er Israel, når luftalarmerne tier?
freitag. 2025
Wie lange wird es dauern, bis Israel erkennt, dass es an einem Genozid beteiligt war?
WELTBÜHNE MAGAZINE, 2025
aN INTERVIEW WITH ILAN PAPPE
Information magazine, 2025
Ødelæggelsen af Gaza er ødelæggelsen af israelsk kultur, samfund og politik
DIE WELTBÜHNE, 2025
Fünfzehn Narben
Questions of an Arab-Jewish Diaspora
disorient Magazine, 2025
„Gideon’s Chariots“ und der letzte Kolonialkrieg
2025, Information magazine
Einstein har lært mig ikke at stole på Tyskland – selv ikke, når det er iført nutidens liberale maske
HAGALIL.COM, 2024
Israels Krieg im Libanon hat mir das Rückgrat gebrochen
2024, Venice university
Entwined Homelands, Empowered Diasporas
Berliner Zeitung, 2024
Ein Israeli in Berlin: Israels Krieg im Libanon hat mir das Rückgrat gebrochen.
hAGALIL, 2024
Rück- und Ausblick: „Jews and Arabs writing in Berlin“
Information.2024
Israelsk digter: Jeg er ved at ændre mig fra en israeler i Berlin til en diasporajøde
Hagalil.com, 2024
Familienbesuch in Israel: Kein Wort vom Frieden
LEFT BERLIN, 2024
The rise and fall of the hubris of the Israeli leadership
berliner zeitung, 2024
Familienbesuch in Israel: Kein Wort vom Frieden
berliner zeitung, 2024
Gaza war: A coincidence awakened my traumatic memory of the Israeli army
Berliner zeitung, 2024
Gaza-Krieg: Ein Zufall weckte meine traumatische Erinnerung an die israelische Armee
INFORMATION, 2024
Gaza er Israels Vietnam. Flashback til min israelske militærtjeneste
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
Ein Israeli in Berlin: Wie kann man angesichts des katastrophalen 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
Ein hebräischer Schriftsteller in Berlin
Mati Shemoelof schreibt über hebräische Literatur in Berlin, Diaspora, Mehrsprachigkeit, jüdische Geschichte und kulturelle Assimilation.
Hebrew versions:
To whom does Hebrew-German-Arabic culture belong? A volcano will erupt in the east, Iton 77 Publishers, 2022
mondoweiss, 2022
Decolonizing the Palestinian Imagination
the jewish independent, 2021
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Mati Shemoelof interviews Michał Laszczkowski about Polish poet Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, his Jewish roots and the Jewish heritage of Warsaw.
MONDOWEISS, 2020
With New Translation, Samir Naqqash’s Place in Israeli Literature Should Finally Be Celebrated
Mati Shemoelof examines Samir Naqqash’s multilingual Iraqi-Jewish literature, his Arabic-Hebrew translation, and his place in the Israeli literary canon.
Make it stand out
Hannah Arendt, Assimilation and Political Responsibility
Mati Shemoelof reflects on Hannah Arendt, assimilation, Jewish identity, political responsibility and the relevance of her ideas in contemporary Berlin.
Photo By Barbara Niggl Radloff - sammlungonline.muenchner-stadtmuseum.de, CC BY-SA 4.0
mondoweiss, 2019
How Israel Uses Arab-Jews to Evade Justice for Palestinian Refugees
Mati Shemoelof examines the political use of Arab-Jewish history in Israel’s discourse on Palestinian refugees, lost property and historical justice.
mondoweiss, 2019
There Is No Peace Without Equality: The Legacy of Kochavi Shemesh and the Israeli Black Panthers
Mati Shemoelof explores Kochavi Shemesh and the Israeli Black Panthers, Mizrahi struggle, social justice, equality and peace in Israel.
Photo- Co-founder of the Israeli Black Panthers, Kochavi Shemesh, born in 1944, Baghdad, Iraq. Photographed in Jerusalem in 2011, 90/120 cm by David Adika. (Photo: courtesy of David Adika)
mondoweiss, 2019
A Mizrahi Appeal Against Israel’s Nation-State Law
Mati Shemoelof examines why Mizrahi and Arab-Jewish activists challenged Israel’s Nation-State Law, focusing on Arabic, cultural identity and equality.
Photo - Mizrahi Jews protest over allegations of the abduction of infants from their families by staff at state-run medical facilities during the 1950s, Jerusalem, 2017. (Photo: Shiraz Grinbaum and Yotam Ronen / Activestills.org)
the jewish independent, 2018
Reborn Berlin synagogue reaches out to Muslim refugees
Mati Shemoelof visits Berlin’s Fraenkelufer Synagogue and explores its work with refugees, Muslim communities and Jewish-Muslim dialogue.
Mondoweiss, 2016
El Al Captain Indoctrinates the Passengers, but Only in Hebrew
Mati Shemoelof recounts an El Al flight to Berlin and questions the use of Hebrew-only announcements to promote Israeli narratives to passengers.
OLD ARTICLES
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OLD ARTICLES 〰️
The jEWISH iNDEPENDENT
My Columns at The “Jewish Independent”
2021. Rozenberg Quarterly
Opening Words – On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) IV
Mantis: A journal of Poetry, Criticism & Translation, issue 19, 2021
A Hebrew Writer in Berlin: On a Healing Disintegration Process
On Hebrew literature, multilingualism, diaspora and cultural identity in Berlin
Mati Shemoelof reflects on writing Hebrew in Berlin, the revival of a Hebrew literary presence in the city, multilingualism, diaspora and the struggle against cultural assimilation.
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.
More information about my first collection of articles
“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.
Read more: Mati Shemoelof on Arab-Jewish identity, migration and diaspora
Explore Mati Shemoelof's articles, essays and cultural writing
Read more about Mati Shemoelof's writing, books and cultural work in Berlin
