Since October 7th, we’ve published four issues of Israeli and Jewish writers, artists, and musicians the world stopped listening to. Now we’re building the programs around the magazine; ways to find new voices, train them, and put their work in front of the people who need to hear it.
Five programs. One goal: more Jewish stories, told better, heard wider.
Every one of them ends in the same place: the pages of BALAGAN.
A year-long track for gap year students in Israel: reading seriously, writing seriously, and workshopping with BALAGAN’s editors and contributors.
Students build real skills: close reading, drafting, revision, editorial feedback.
The goal is publication. The strongest work from the program is published in BALAGAN, alongside established Israeli writers and artists.
Currently seeking partners.
A selective fellowship for emerging Jewish storytellers – writers, artists, and musicians who have something to say and need the structure, mentorship, and platform to say it.
Fellows work closely with our editorial team, meet working Israeli writers and artists, and develop a substantial project over the course of the fellowship.
Fellows publish in BALAGAN. Some stay on as contributors.
For emerging writers and artists.
Currently in development.
Creative workshops and public conversations at Israel’s cultural institutions. Our editors and contributors teach writing, talk about making art in wartime, and bring the magazine off the page and into the room.
If you’ve read BALAGAN and wanted to sit with the people who make it – this is where that happens.
For readers, writers, and anyone who wants in the room.
An annual conference, developed with Bar-Ilan University, bringing together the writers, scholars, artists, and editors shaping Jewish creative culture after October 7th.
Panels, readings, and arguments. The conversations that usually happen in private, held in public.
For writers, academics, students, and serious readers.
Professor William Kolbrener – Bar-Ilan professor, BALAGAN co-founder, American-born – travels to universities across the U.S. to talk about Israel now: who we are after October 7th, what Israeli writers and artists are actually saying, and why the creative record matters when the news cycle moves on.
Not hasbara. Not a lecture. A real conversation, from someone who lives in both worlds.
For University students, Hillels, Jewish studies departments, campus communities.
Booking now.
