Zion's Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Tribes of Israel wandered in the Sinai Desert for forty years before they could enter the Promised Land. This book took nearly the same amount of time to gestate. Many people helped us navigate the often treacherous wadis, passes, dry holes, false turns, and dead ends we traversed during this otherwise interminable slog. These included Robert Silverberg, who introduced us to our agent, Eddie Schneider, of the JABberwocky Literary Agency, who ran with this effort long after any other front-ranking agent would have shown it—and us—the door.

Sheldon Teitelbaum would like to offer thanks to our legal Godzilla Guy Mizrachi; Aharon Hauptman, who volunteered for the odious task of translating his words into Hebrew during the heyday of Fantasia 2000; Hanan Sher, who ran his book reviews (he used to refer to them as “Yids in Spaaace!”) in the Jerusalem Post, the first Israeli daily ever to publish a monthly column on SF/F; and Ian Watson, John Clute, and the good folks at Foundation, who at various times offered up much-needed erudition, insight, and other assistance

Emanuel Lottem wishes pay respect to the late Amos Geffen and Aharon Sheer, as well as Dorit Landes and Adi Zemach, the trailblazers, and to add thanks also to Liat Shahar-Kashtan and other members of the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy who offered help and advice, in particular Nadav Almog and Ehud Maimon; to Danny Manor and Gabi Peleg, who got me involved with Fantasia 2000; to the many readers who gave me feedback on my SF/F translations (good ones or bad, they were always helpful); to Larry Niven, Brian Stableford, and Ian Watson for their encouragement; and finally, to my good friend Aharon Hauptman.

We both thank Avi Katz, our illustrious illustrator and good friend; Alex Epstein, Elana Gomel, Danielle Gurevitch, Gail Hareven, Eli Herstein, and Noah Mannheim, who helped comprise our editorial board; Adam Rovner and Jessica Cohen-Rovner, who provided early and timely counsel regarding research and translation-related issues; Bill Gough, who went over the manuscript and made some cogent remarks; Adam Teitelbaum, Lance Cody, Adam Roth, and Eric Menyuk, the intrepid gang behind our Kickstarter promo, and Lionel Brown, who supported it wholeheartedly; John Robert Colombo, who first showed us how it was done; and Robert Mandel, who made it his business to ensure that Israel, despite the trepidations of every other publisher we encountered, got a fair shake. Other staff at Mandel-Vilar Press, as well as Noel Parsons and Barbara Werden, were ever helpful. Without their stalwart contributions, and those of so many others, Zion’s Fiction would likely never have emerged from the desert. To them, and everyone else who helped light our way, we remain profoundly grateful.

And of course, we owe a debt of gratitude to all the authors featured in this collection and an apology to the many left out for lack of space. We fervently hope to rectify this in future volumes.