At a time of deep tension between Israel and the Diaspora, Hess argues that Jewish peoplehood must become the foundation for renewing connection. Hess explores how Israel’s successes and failures shape Jewish identity worldwide, and calls for a more pluralistic, democratic, and inclusive Israeli society that strengthens rather than weakens bonds with Jews everywhere.

A fragmented, darkly comic meditation on aging, memory, and bodily shame, tracing a life shaped by cuts both literal and historical. Moving between childhood trauma, exile, and return, it weaves private vulnerability with inherited wounds, asking how violence, silence, and loss lodge themselves in the body—and how, if ever, they can be laid to rest.