Fiction and essays on exile, diaspora, and what it means to be human
Moshe Sakal was born in Tel Aviv into a Jewish-Arab family with roots in Damascus and Cairo. He lived in Paris before settling in Berlin in 2019, where he co-founded Altneuland Press — the first Hebrew literary publisher established outside Israel since 1948.
He is the author of six Hebrew novels, including The Diamond Setter (Other Press, translated by Jessica Cohen) and Yolanda (Stock, Paris). A new edition of The Diamond Setter will be published by Other Press / Penguin Random House in September 2026. His fiction explores exile, diaspora, queer identity, and the shared Arab-Jewish world before 1948.
He writes regularly for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde, Libération, and Haaretz. His essay series "Mensch und Maschine" — nineteen conversations with an artificial intelligence on memory, the body, and what it means to be human — was published in the FAZ throughout 2025.
A two-time Sapir Prize nominee, Eshkol Prize winner, Fulbright Scholar, and Honorary Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa, Sakal received the Berlin Senate's Literature Grant in 2021.
Photo: Boaz Arad
THE DIAMOND SETTER (Revised Edition) Other Press | Forthcoming Fall 2026
This revised edition focuses on two families—one Palestinian and one Jewish—connected by a blue diamond that passes between Damascus, Jaffa, and Tel Aviv. It includes a new preface and updated background on recent developments in Damascus.
“Maybe We Can Never Go Back”: An Interview with Moshe Sakal in The Los Angeles Review of Books.
Podcast listening: The Old/New Middle East, The Tel Aviv Review.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
For full publications in German, click on this page.
New project: “Mensch und Maschine” – A series of philosophical essays on AI, technology, and human nature, published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung throughout 2025. Read more in German here.
Le Monde: "Literature Must Approach AI as an Opportunity." Link or full PDF (French)
“Take us to see the Mona Lisa, Uncle Moshe!”: French, Libération or English , JBC
Instructions for Eating Granny Ora’s Kibbeh, Words Without Borders
De Beauvoir and Sartre on the Kibbutz, World Literature Today
Israel’s “melting pot” turns 70: This is why I call myself an Arab Jew, Salon
Sodom and Diaspora—Jewish Identity in ‘Call Me By Your Name’, IntoMore
Excerpt from MY SISTER, The Literary Review
We Have Led Others Astray, Haaretz
Even Amid Spreading Violence, Time Mostly Stands Still in Mixed Yaffo, The Forward
