Dory Manor and Moshe Sakal, who run a press for Hebrew literature in Berlin, are often asked if their business is Israeli.<\/p>\n
The partners in life and publishing come from Israel, though they have lived in Berlin and Paris for the better part of two decades. But they say their publishing house, Altneuland, is neither Israeli nor European. Instead, they sought to create a home for Hebrew literature from around the world \u2014 open to Israeli writers, but free from Israeli state funding.<\/p>\n
Altneuland is the first non-religious Hebrew publishing house to set up outside of Israel since the state was established. Manor and Sakal founded the press in 2024, and this fall, Altneuland will launch in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that the Hebrew language is not only a national language,\u201d said Manor, the editor-in-chief. \u201cHebrew has always been a global language, and even modern Hebrew has been an international language \u2014 mostly European, but not only \u2014 before the creation of the State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manor and Sakal have expanded their mission from Hebrew literature to publishing Jewish authors across languages, including German, French, Russian and Yiddish. The U.S. launch will include an original English-language book by Ruth Margalit, along with English translations of Hebrew novels by Noa Yedlin and Itamar Orlev.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Altneuland is also the German publisher of \u201cThe Future is Peace,\u201d<\/a> a New York Times bestseller by Israeli Maoz Inon, whose kibbutznik parents were killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah, whose brother died in 1990 after being tortured in an Israeli prison.<\/p>\n In a time when thousands of authors and publishers globally have pledged to boycott Israeli institutions<\/a> over what they identify as a genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza, Manor and Sakal say that Altneuland is not a boycott. They work with writers who live in Israel and sell to Israeli bookstores. Establishing a Berlin-based publishing house made them ineligible for Israeli public funding so they could avoid the fraught question of accepting support from the government.<\/p>\n Sakal, the publisher, acknowledged that Israel was a center for Hebrew and Jewish literature, but said it doesn\u2019t have to be the only center. \u201cWe are not replacing it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are doing something else.\u201d<\/p>\n Altneuland allows the founders to work with Israelis while staying apart from the Israeli Ministry of Culture, which provides funding for Israel\u2019s publishing industry, largely through literary awards.\u00a0<\/p>\n In January, the ministry canceled its annual culture prizes. Culture Minister Miki Zohar, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing Likud party, cited the political bent of the prizes and said their cancellation was owed to the organizers \u201cclearly ignoring artists whose opinions are held by most of the country.\u201d<\/a> The cuts came shortly after Zohar launched an alternative state film award ceremony, cutting funds to the Ophir Awards \u2014 Israel\u2019s equivalent of the Oscars \u2014 after it awarded best film to \u201cThe Sea,\u201d<\/a> about a Palestinian boy in the West Bank who attempts to go to Tel Aviv and see the sea.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s literary world, which pays poorly and lacks broad recognition, depends heavily on state-sponsored prizes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis government is, for me, an enemy of Israel and not Israel itself,\u201d said Manor. \u201cSo no, I\u2019m not boycotting anyone, but I don\u2019t want to deal with the current Israeli government. I do want to deal with Israeli readers, with Israeli writers.\u201d<\/p>\n Those writers share many of Manor and Sakal\u2019s political views. The founders\u2019 goal is to make Altneuland a home for Jewish authors with a liberal outlook \u2014 especially those who feel pressured by rising nationalism, whether in Israel or elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n Margalit, a Tel Aviv-based journalist, will publish a collection of her political and cultural profiles in Israel through a collaboration between Altneuland and Pushkin Press. Her book, \u201cIn the Belly of the Whale: Portraits from a Fractured Israel,\u201d is coming out in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n Margalit said she was drawn to Manor and Sakal\u2019s \u201chumanist spirit,\u201d along with their ability to publish the book simultaneously in English, Hebrew and German.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt a time when so many people are quick to jump to labels or cancellations, it was bracing to find thoughtful partners who were similarly aggrieved about the political situation as I was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Arad\u2019s Hebrew novel, \u201cOur Lady of Kazan,\u201d will be published in German by Altneuland as \u201cKinderwunsch\u201d in July. Arad, an Israeli-born writer, has lived in California for over 20 years and authored 12 books of Hebrew fiction<\/a>. One Haaretz reviewer<\/a> summed her up as \u201cthe finest living author writing in Hebrew\u201d who was \u201cin exile in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n Arad\u2019s books, often featured on bestseller lists in Israel, tend to deal with Israelis living abroad. The theme fits into the global perspective of Altneuland, targeting readers who are curious about crossing national boundaries.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been thrilled to see that Israeli readers are willing \u2014 even eager \u2014 to read stories about Israeli expatriates,\u201d said Arad. \u201cThe experience of living outside Israel, whether temporarily for work or study or on a more permanent basis, has become a central theme in Hebrew literature.\u201d<\/p>\n Altneuland takes its tongue-in-cheek name from Theodor Herzl\u2019s 1902 novel, literally meaning \u201cold new land.\u201d The founder of political Zionism envisioned a utopic, multicultural Jewish state where Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we finally decided to call our press Altneuland, it was because our Alteuland, an \u2018old new land,\u2019 is a land without territories. It is the Hebrew language,\u201d said Manor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Berlin is a thriving hub for up to 30,000 Israeli expatriates. Among them is a growing community of writers and intellectuals, including some who left Israel out of frustration and anger at their government<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Manor and Sakal see another reason for making Berlin their home base. They view Altneuland as a continuation of Schocken Verlag<\/a>, a Jewish publishing house in Berlin that improbably persisted through the 1930s. Schocken Verlag was a cultural lifeline for Jews under Hitler\u2019s regime, publishing books by Franz Kafka, Heinrich Heine, Rabbi Leo Baeck and Shmuel Yosef Agnon, a founding father of modern Hebrew literature.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1939, the publishing house was finally forced to shutter and moved to British Mandate Palestine. The reestablished Schocken Books lives on today as part of Penguin Random House. But Manor and Sakal said their project aligns with the original Schocken Verlag \u2014 the one destroyed by Nazism.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we find in both models is the possibility of a Jewish cultural space that is cosmopolitan, multilingual, humanist, non-national, and not dependent on a single territory,\u201d said Sakal.<\/p>\n Altneuland has faced skepticism, particularly from Israel. Publisher and editor Oded Carmeli said in Haaretz<\/a>, \u201cThe truth is that there aren\u2019t enough Hebrew readers outside of Israel to support a publishing house \u2013 not even a bookstore, not even a shelf in a bookstore \u2013 and even if there were enough readers, no store in Berlin or Madrid would maintain such a shelf, for fear of repercussions.\u201d<\/p>\n The Altneuland duo said their risky proposition is working out so far. Most of their Hebrew readers remain in Israel, where they are printing books in the thousands and going into second printings on select titles. But they are also cultivating a readership in Germany, where they print smaller special runs of Hebrew-language editions.\u00a0<\/p>\n