Ruth Margalit — In the Belly of the Whale: Portraits from a Fractured Israel - with Celeste Marcus
Ruth Margalit discusses *In the Belly of the Whale: Portraits from a Fractured Israel*, a collection drawn from a decade of her reporting on Israeli politicians, artists, activists, academics, and other public figures. The ten portraits portray a society shaped by war, polarization, populism, and nationalism, bringing together Jewish and Arab perspectives as well as those of insiders and outsiders navigating Israel’s political and social systems.
Margalit revisits and updates these journalistic profiles from her present-day perspective as a writer and mother living in Tel Aviv during wartime. In conversation with Celeste Marcus, she considers how the people and forces represented in the book illuminate Israel’s transformed society and current political reality.
When: Saturday, October 3, 2026
Showtimes: 1:00 p.m.
Tickets: Free
Seating: First come, first served.
Participants: Ruth Margalit, in conversation with Celeste Marcus.
About the author: Margalit is a Tel Aviv-based journalist and contributing writer for *The New York Times Magazine*. Her work has also appeared in *The New Yorker*, *The New York Review of Books*, *The New York Times Book Review*, *The New Republic*, *Slate*, *Bookforum*, *Haaretz*, and other publications. She previously worked on the editorial staff of *The New Yorker*. Raised in Jerusalem, she studied at Tel Aviv University and earned a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. After living in New York from 2010 to 2019, she returned to Israel with her family. She has also written a children’s book in Hebrew.
About the conversation partner: Celeste Marcus is the executive editor of *Liberties: A Journal of Culture and Politics*, which she helped establish. Her biography of Chaim Soutine was published in October 2025, and she lives in Washington, DC.
Venue: Politics and Prose at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008.
Accessibility: Requests for accommodations and accessibility questions should be sent to events@politics-prose.com, ideally at least one week before the event. The venue will make reasonable efforts to accommodate requests submitted closer to the event.
Related book: *In the Belly of the Whale: Portraits from a Fractured Israel* by Ruth Margalit is available in paperback for $19.95. Its publication date is September 22, 2026.