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In her memoir My Father, the Messiah, Gil Hochberg traces a father-daughter relationship as it transforms across decades—from intense closeness in childhood to a fraught distance as Hochberg’s father Yossi becomes increasingly convinced that he is the Messiah. After building a career as a statistician in the US, Yossi returns to Israel and becomes an avid Zionist, while having several psychotic episodes. Hochberg reconstructs her relationship with her father through an archive of letters between the two, as well as her father’s personal writings, painting a tender portrait of the non-normative family life within which Hochberg’s queer identity unfolds and a heart-rending account of her father’s mental decline. Hochberg crafts a powerful story of intimacy and loss that dovetails with sea changes in Israel’s religious and political environment since the 1990s.
Price: $25.95
Pages: 198
Publisher: Duke University Press
Imprint: Duke University Press
Publication Date:
03 February 2026
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781478032915
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
"A powerful account of watching a loved one descend into mental illness and the messy, emotional process of retroactively trying to come to grips with a parent’s life and legacy. It’s an insightful portrait of one woman grappling with the weight of personal history."—Publishers Weekly
"Over the course of the book, the interplay of various elements of Hochberg’s and her dad’s lives yields a compelling portrait of someone slowly coming to terms with the death of a loved one. Readers who have dealt with similar tumult in their own lives will likely feel a strong connection with this work. Those with a specific interest in Jewish history and culture will also treasure the book as a deeply reported account of late-20th-century Jewish life amid various social upheavals. A compelling and well-crafted family portrait."—Kirkus
"Over the course of the book, the interplay of various elements of Hochberg’s and her dad’s lives yields a compelling portrait of someone slowly coming to terms with the death of a loved one. Readers who have dealt with similar tumult in their own lives will likely feel a strong connection with this work. Those with a specific interest in Jewish history and culture will also treasure the book as a deeply reported account of late-20th-century Jewish life amid various social upheavals. A compelling and well-crafted family portrait."—Kirkus
Gil Hochberg is Ransford Professor of Hebrew and Visual Studies, Comparative Literature, and Middle East Studies at Columbia University. She is author of Visual Occupations: Vision and Visibility in a Conflict Zone, Becoming Palestine: Toward an Archival Imagination of the Future, and In Spite of Partition: Jews, Arabs, and the Limits of Separatist Imagination.
Prologue
2013 East Jerusalem
2013 Tel Aviv
1991 Geha and Petach Tikvah
2016 Los Angeles
1992 Tel Aviv
1989 Tel Aviv
1987 Tel Aviv
1989–1995 Tel Aviv
2013 Tel Aviv
2013–2015 Los Angeles
2016 | 1976–1985 | 1970–1975 Los Angeles ● Ann Arbor and Bloomington ● Chapel Hill
2016–2017 Los Angeles
2018 | 1980–1986 New York
1972–1976 Chapel Hill
2020–2022 New York
January 2023 New York
January 2018 Tel Aviv
April 2023 Petach Tikvah
May 2023 | 1949–1963 New York
2023–2024 New York
2023–2024 New York
August 2024 Rebordões
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
2013 East Jerusalem
2013 Tel Aviv
1991 Geha and Petach Tikvah
2016 Los Angeles
1992 Tel Aviv
1989 Tel Aviv
1987 Tel Aviv
1989–1995 Tel Aviv
2013 Tel Aviv
2013–2015 Los Angeles
2016 | 1976–1985 | 1970–1975 Los Angeles ● Ann Arbor and Bloomington ● Chapel Hill
2016–2017 Los Angeles
2018 | 1980–1986 New York
1972–1976 Chapel Hill
2020–2022 New York
January 2023 New York
January 2018 Tel Aviv
April 2023 Petach Tikvah
May 2023 | 1949–1963 New York
2023–2024 New York
2023–2024 New York
August 2024 Rebordões
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index