Haim Watzman (born 1956, Cleveland, Ohio), is an American-born, Jerusalem-based writer, journalist, and translator.

Biography

Watzman was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. After receiving a B.A. from Duke University, Watzman made aliyah to Israel, where he has lived since 1978 and worked as a freelance translator and journalist. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Ilana, and four children.

Literary career

Watzman is the author of Company C: An American’s Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2005), a memoir centered on his service in a reserve infantry unit in the Israel Defense Forces and A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel’s Rift Valley (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2007), as well as Necessary Stories (West 26th Street Press 2017). Watzman is known for his English translations of recent works by Hebrew-language authors. His translations include Tom Segev’s The Seventh Million, Elvis in Jerusalem, One Palestine Complete, and "A State at any Cost", as well as David Grossman’s The Yellow Wind, Sleeping on a Wire, and Death as a Way of Life. He served for 25 years as Israel correspondent for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and was Israel correspondent for the British science journal Nature. His opinion pieces have appeared on the pages of The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Forward. Watzman currently writes the monthly “Necessary Stories” column for The Jerusalem Report, and co-authors the widely read South Jerusalem blog, along with Gershom Gorenberg. In 2017 a collection of his "Necessary Stories" was published.

Published works

Books translated