TOM HAVIV & PENINA EILBERG-SCHWARTZ – A FLAG OF NO NATION

Join us for the launch of a bold new literary salon series spotlighting Ayin Press authors whose work redefines Jewish storytelling and creativity. 

We begin with a conversation between Tom Haviv, poet, artist, and co-founder of Ayin Press, and Penina Eilberg-Schwartz, writer, editor, and Ayin’s editorial director, exploring Haviv’s acclaimed debut collection, A Flag of No Nation. 

Haviv’s book is a meditation on historical rupture and political imagination, tracing the journey of Turkish Jews through antisemitism, Turkish nationalism, Zionism, and the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire. Through forms of storytelling that range from allegory to oral history, Haviv investigates the history of Israel|Palestine and the mythologies of nationalism, searching the archives for rituals and frames that might one day shape new realities of peace and justice. A warning against imperfect dreams, A Flag of No Nation reminds us how the act of remembrance can help us re-envision the future. 

Tom Haviv is a writer, multimedia artist, and organizer born in Israel and based in Brooklyn. He is the co-founder of Ayin Press and creator of the Hamsa Flag Project (@hamsaflag), which fosters dialogue about Israel|Palestine, Mizrahi/Sephardi culture, and Jewish-Muslim solidarity. He is also the author of Woven, a children’s book. 

Penina Eilberg-Schwartz is a writer and editor whose work engages with literature, history, spirituality, and social justice. She is the managing editor of Ayin Press, with essays and fiction appearing in a wide range of publications. Her first full-length book, In This Place Together, was published by Beacon Press in 2021. In 2024, she co-authored The Distance We Have to Travel: Snapshot of an Intergenerational Jewish Conversation After October 7th with her mother, Rabbi Amy Eilberg, delving into how families navigate ideological divides with honesty and care.

“Tom Haviv’s relentlessly inventive first collection offers a fresh and moving reckoning with the charged nature of his family’s Levantine-Jewish identity… a much larger history, one that is—politically and poetically—re-membered best by being broken open.” —Peter Cole 

Questions? Email [email protected]