Hunting in America. By Tehila Hakimi, translated by Joanna Chen. New York:  Penguin, 2025,  208 pp., $18.00 paperback. (Original work published as יריתי באמריקה [Shooting in America]. Tel Aviv, Israel:  Achuzat Bayit, 2023.)

Hunting in America, by Tehila Hakimi, translated by Joanna Chen, is a short novel with a simple plot that develops a stark, original, and devastating metaphor, capturing a life of sustained and unrelieved ambivalence. Its protagonist is an Israeli woman approaching middle age. She remains unnamed in the narrative, which is told in the first person through short chapters. Remaining unnamed gives both the sense of an Everyman story and the sense of a character who remains unknown.

The protagonist has come to America to work for an Israel-based tech company. Her main relationship is with David, a coworker, who becomes her de facto boss. Though we occasionally see them at work, he invites her to learn to shoot, that is, to hunt, primarily deer. The short chapters detail her learning to shoot and to hunt. Many of the chapters begin with, “The first time I went shooting in America …” through “The fifteenth time I went shooting….” Each of the last two chapters begins, “The last time I went hunting in America.”

What is the difference between shooting and hunting? Shooting is a skill, and we learn that during her army service, the protagonist was trained to handle a gun. Shooting is skill that has a different valence in Israel than it does in America, although this is never elaborated, a point emphasized by the repetition of “in America.” In Israel, it is an army skill. In America, a sport. But the repetition begs explanation—what is the difference? Israel was founded as a communal, if not socialist, country to give a homeland to the Jews. Shooting in Israel, as an army function, is

communal, an undertaking of survival. America was founded on a Bill of Rights detailing individual rights, which, among other reasons, fostered a culture of rugged individualism.

Why is this