Jehanne Dubrow is the author of ten poet­ry col­lec­tions, three books of non­fic­tion, and a craft book, The Wound­ed Line: A Guide to Writ­ing Poems of Trau­ma. Her next book of non­fic­tion, Friv­o­li­ty: A Defense, is forth­com­ing from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Press in autumn 2026. Her writ­ing has appeared in New Eng­land Review, South­ern Review, and Ploughshares. She is a pro­fes­sor of cre­ative writ­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Texas. Read more of Jehanne Gubrow’s work pub­lished by Jew­ish Book Coun­cil here. 

The daugh­ter of Iraqi-Jew­­ish refugees, Saman­tha Ellis is the author of How to be a Hero­ine and Take Courage. Her plays include How to Date a Fem­i­nist, Cling to me Like Ivy and Oper­a­tion Mag­ic Car­pet. Her jour­nal­ism has appeared in the Guardian, theTLS, the Spec­ta­tor, Lit­er­ary Review and more. She worked on the first two Padding­ton films. She lives in Lon­don, where Always Car­ry Salt was pub­lished under the title Chop­ping Onions on My Heart. Read more of Saman­tha Ellis’s work for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil here.

Lau­ra Junger is a French illus­tra­tor and artist liv­ing in Berlin and Paris. Her work spans edi­to­r­i­al com­mis­sions, phys­i­cal objects, and visu­al cam­paigns. Select­ed clients include the New York Times, the New York­er, Die Zeit, War­by Park­er, Elle, the Wall Street Jour­nal, and Rimowa.

Toby Lloyd is the author of Fer­vor, which was a final­ist for two Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards and the Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture. The nov­el has been trans­lat­ed into five lan­guages. His essays and short fic­tion have appeared in the Fence Mag­a­zine, Some­Such Sto­ries, the Los Ange­les Review of Books and else­where. He lives in Lon­don and teach­es cre­ative writ­ing at City Lit. Read more of Toby Lloy­d’s work for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil here.

1. How should we treat can­on­ized books that, even if they don’t con­tain stereo­types them­selves, were nonethe­less writ­ten by prej­u­diced authors? Mitzi Hoff­man and Cory Feigen­baum have oppos­ing opin­ions on this. With whom do you agree more?

2. Com­pare the ways in which the Holo­caust has informed both char­ac­ters’ points of view. How has the dis­course around anti­semitism changed from when Hoff­man was young to 2016, when ​“Goliath” takes place? How has it changed from 2016 to today?

3. Unlike Hoff­man and Cory, the nar­ra­tor of ​“Goliath” doesn’t voice strong opin­ions — in fact, the nar­ra­tor doesn’t speak at all until the very end of the sto­ry. Why do you think the author chose to char­ac­ter­ize the nar­ra­tor this way? What does the narrator’s per­spec­tive add to ​“Goliath”? 

4. Con­sid­er the role of social media in ​“Goliath.” What are dif­fer­ent ways in which social media can be help­ful and harm­ful in call­ing out anti­semitism and oth­er hate speech? Does Cory’s use of social media remind you of oth­er cas­es you have seen or heard about recently?

5. Hoff­man says that for some twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry writ­ers, ​“trav­el was impor­tant. They went out into the world, hunt­ing for sto­ries like rare beasts. Borges was the oppo­site. As he saw it, the whole uni­verse was con­tained in a library. And I’m with him. Let the sto­ries come to me.” The nar­ra­tor, on the oth­er hand, has trav­eled from abroad specif­i­cal­ly to study cre­ative writ­ing. How is place con­nect­ed to sto­ry? Could ​“Goliath” be set out­side New York City? Out­side the Unit­ed States? 

6. For Hoffman’s class, The Craft of Fic­tion, stu­dents are asked to present about what they glean about com­po­si­tion from read­ing the work of renowned authors. What is a les­son in craft you’re learned from read­ing ​“Goliath”?

7. Exam­ine Lau­ra Junger’s wrap-around cov­er illus­tra­tion of ​“Goliath.” How does it com­ple­ment the story?

8. Who is Goliath in this sto­ry, and who is David? Could there be more than one David or Goliath?