Philip Graubart, "Here There Is No Why" and Philip Graubart "Here There Is No Why"

Oct 12, 2025

Michael Kinnamon is a longtime theologian and former head of the National Council of Churches, now a fiction writer with his novel, A Rooftop in Jerusalem. Philip Graubart is a rabbi and novelist exploring Holocaust memory through his work, Here There Is No Why. They discuss the emotional complexities of their characters, the power of fiction to foster empathy, and the intertwining of personal narratives with historical events. Their works also delve into interreligious encounters and the nuances of love amid conflict, illustrating how literature can bridge divides.

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ANECDOTE

Personal Witness To Al-Aqsa Fire

Michael Kinnamon recounts living in Tel Aviv in 1969 and staying in Jerusalem's Al-Kamal hotel during the Al-Aqsa arson.
He uses this firsthand experience as the emotional opening and research base for his novel's beginning.

ANECDOTE

Rabbi Who Writes Fiction

Philip Graubart describes his parallel careers as a congregational rabbi and a lifelong fiction writer.
He wrote stories throughout his rabbinic career and now writes full-time in retirement.

INSIGHT

Outsider View Opens Reader Curiosity

Graubart and Kinnamon prefer outsider narrators to let readers form their own judgments.
Outsider perspective invites curiosity and avoids forcing conclusions on complex conflicts.

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In this double interview I talked to Michael Kinnamon, author of A Rooftop in Jerusalem and Philip Graubart author of Here There Is No Why.

A Rooftop In Jerusalem: When Daniel Jacobs decides to spend his junior year abroad in Israel, he never dreams he'll fall in love with both Jerusalem's Old City and an Israeli woman, Shoshana. It's the year religion becomes a part of his identity, from the heights of a simple rooftop. A year he encounters the tragic complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. A year that begins a four-decade-long love affair, as complicated and heartbreaking as the political conflict with which it's intertwined. As Daniel moves through life-through marriage and divorce, career and travel-he returns periodically to Jerusalem, where his heart faithfully remains. A Rooftop in Jerusalem brings the Old City's walls, holy sites, and inhabitants to life, while putting a human face on headlines from the Middle East.

Here There Is No Why: Did Chaim Lerner, acclaimed Israeli author and Holocaust survivor, kill himself in 1983, thirty-eight years after surviving Auschwitz? If so, was it traumatic memories finally catching up to him? Or despair over Holocaust denialism? Or ordinary, difficult health issues-an aching hip, a damaged knee? Or simply a deadly episode of depression? Or was it murder? In 2005, Judah Loeb, Lerner's former student and now a struggling American journalist and single father, travels to Jerusalem to investigate Lerner's death. He drags along his fifteen-year-old daughter, Hannah, and they team up with Charlie, Judah's former Hebrew University roommate, now a Jerusalem homicide detective. Their investigation takes them through the darker corners of the Israeli psyche, where they uncover secrets that threaten to destroy Lerner's reputation and alter Jewish history. While probing the mysteries of Israel's past, they encounter personal betrayal, heartbreak, and the fragile possibilities of forgiveness and redemption.

Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Blusky and IG: @robbyref

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