HILLEL HALKIN’s work includes Letters to an American Jewish Friend; Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel; A Strange Death; Grand Things to Write a Poem On: A Verse Autobiography of Shmuel Hanagid; and dozens of translations from Hebrew and Yiddish by major contemporary and classical authors. His political, cultural, and literary essays have appeared often in Commentary and The New Republic, and he has been a weekly columnist for The Jerusalem Post and The New York Sun. He lives in Israel.