A Literary Tribute to Stuart Schoffman

This week we lost a true renaissance man. Stuart Schoffman’s untimely passing at the age of 74 leaves a big void in the Jewish world. Many of us knew Schoffman through the 17 years he spent as a founding editor and columnist for The Jerusalem Report. I remember anxiously waiting for my copy of the Report in the mail (remember those days?), eagerly anticipating Schoffman’s next column. No matter the topic – politics, religion, Israeli society, the Jewish world, literature, poetry or people – Schoffman opened our minds to a deeper understanding of complex issues. He wrote from a deeply educated place, blending his vast and diverse knowledge with a soulful style and charming sense of humor. 

The definition of “renaissance man” is “a person with many talents or areas of knowledge.” Such was the life of Stuart Schoffman.

Born in Brooklyn, New York on December 19, 1947, and educated at Harvard and Yale, Stuart’s professional life spanned the worlds of journalism, film, university teaching, speaking and translating literature.

Before moving to Israel in 1988, he worked as a writer for Fortune and Time magazines, and as an editor at The Los Angeles Herald Examiner. His talent with the pen also took him to Hollywood, where he was a successful screenwriter. He taught history, screenwriting and film at prestigious universities across the United States.

After making aliyah, his columns in The Jerusalem Report, as well as his later articles in The Jewish Review of Books and other publications, made him one of the Jewish world’s most beloved, respected and widely read thinkers. He continued his work in film, writing the script for “Eyes Wide Open,” a documentary exploring the experience of American Jewish visitors to Israel. He served as a consultant to the joint Israeli-Palestinian production of ”Sesame Street,” and taught film at Tel Aviv University and the Sam Spiegel School of Film and Television in Jerusalem.

With all of his talents, Schoffman had one especially deep passion. He fell in love with Zionism’s greatest revolution: the advent of Hebrew as a spoken language. 

With all of his talents, Schoffman had one especially deep passion. He fell in love with Zionism’s greatest revolution: the advent of Hebrew as a spoken language. His cinematic ode to modern Hebrew was writing the script for “The Wordmaker,” an Israeli television drama about Eliezer Ben- Yehuda, Zionism’s “founding father” of modern Israeli Hebrew. 

But his greatest expression of love for modern Hebrew came in the written form, except in this case, his name never had top billing. It was always beneath or alongside an original writer. Meet Stuart Schoffman, translator of Israeli literature par excellence.

A google search of Schoffman’s name presents hundreds of original articles written “by Stuart Schoffman.” An Amazon Books search shows his name listed together with A.B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, David Grossman and Meir Shalev, four of modern Israel’s greatest and most complex writers. Schoffman’s critically acclaimed translations into English of nine of their novels and two children’s books display his linguistic talents in English as well as his complete mastery of the Hebrew language. 

“If literature isn’t everything, it’s not worth a single hour of someone’s trouble” said Jean-Paul Sartre. One of society’s prevalent myths and misconceptions is that fiction writers merely tell stories while philosophers tell the truth. In modern Israeli society, writers such as those translated by Schoffman are widely regarded as much more than lyrical artists. Through their novels, they have emerged as Israel’s thinkers, philosophers, political commentators, theological inquirers and moral voices. 

By translating these writers for an English- reading audience, Schoffman did more than provide readers the opportunity to enjoy quality literature from a foreign country. He invited them into the heart and soul of Israeli society, where they could experience Israel in its full gamut of emotions, challenges and complexities. In his translations of Yehoshua, Appelfeld, Grossman and Shalev, Schoffman presented his American readers — especially the Jewish ones who seek a deeper connection to Israel — a literary looking-glass through which they can gain a more intimate relationship with Israeli society.

The Israeli topics explored in the novels translated by Schoffman include the tragic effects of war, the ongoing trauma of the Holocaust, the divisive religious-secular debates, Sephardi identity in a still heavily Ashkenazi society, the dangers of excessive power, and – like in all societies – the human journeys of love, friendship, loneliness and aging. Schoffman wrote columns on many of these issues, and by translating novels that brought them to life through plots and characters, he brought the issues closer to our hearts. Through his columns, he made us think, but through his poetic translations, he invited us to feel.

In Grossman’s children’s book “The Hug,” lovingly translated by Schoffman, a little boy feels lonely until his mother’s hug comforts him. Israel and the Jewish world need a hug. We’ve lost a great voice, one that spoke beautifully, both in the original and in translation.

Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the International Director of the Sephardic Educational Center and the rabbi of the Westwood Village Synagogue.