PRODUCER | FILMMAKER | AUTHOR
Silent Waters, A Novel
The Things They Carried meets Fauda
He joined Shayetet 13 to serve his country. He didn’t know it would cost him everyone he loved.
Yoav isn't your typical Israeli Navy SEAL. Sensitive. Thoughtful. Reluctant to become a killer. But in Shayetet 13—Israel’s most elite unit—there’s no room for softness.
When his best friend Goldberg is killed in combat beside him, Yoav starts a secret relationship with Goldberg’s fiancée—a sharp-witted intelligence officer who sees through his armor. Their love might be the only thing keeping him sane…or it might destroy him from the inside.
Based on real missions. Written by someone who lived them.
Silent Waters is a raw, intimate portrait of love, loss, and survival in modern warfare.
The Life That Shaped the Story.
The Story That Shaped Me.
I served five years in Shayetet 13, Israel’s Navy SEALs.
I wrote Silent Waters not just to show what that life is like—but what it feels like. This is a novel about grief, brotherhood, identity, and love—in all its forms: of self, country, brothers, and the kind that doesn’t survive war unchanged. It’s about the parts of war we don’t talk about enough.
I lived it. Then I wrote it.
I wanted to make the Israeli experience accessible—to give readers an honest window into what it’s like to grow up in Israel, to serve in the IDF, and to fight in a conflict that defines our daily reality.
This novel doesn't push an agenda; it invites you inside.
Silent Waters is a slice of life. A deeply personal one. It’s fiction—wrapped around the truths I carry with me every day.
Silent Waters is About More than War
It’s about surviving love, loss, and guilt inside a war that never ends.
About what you give to a cause you love—and what it takes in return.
Yoav’s journey unfolds across four defining pillars:
TRAINING:
BECOMING A SEAL
The Israeli Navy SEALs break you before they make you
Brutal training means cold water, merciless drills, sleep deprivation, psychological warfare, and a mindset designed to crush hesitation. They don’t just push you: they systematically erase weakness by breaking you, then rebuilding you into something better. A warrior.
GOLDBERG:
THE ANCHOR
A Bond Forged in Salt, Sand, and Fire
Yoav and Goldberg grew up together, trained together, fought together. Goldberg was the one constant, the anchor who held Yoav in place. When Goldberg is killed, the world tilts. And without that anchor, Yoav begins to drift—through guilt, love, and the search for who he really is.
REAL MISSIONS:
REAL STAKES
Not Just Inspired by Truth—Forged in It
Drawn from the author’s experience in Israel’s Navy SEALs—high-stakes covert missions that test loyalty, skill, and survival. Each operation in Silent Waters reflects the raw, unvarnished truth of real-world military combat——where the consequences follow you long after the mission ends.
COMING OF AGE: COMING TO TERMS
This is what growing up looks like in Israel
Yoav starts as a kid—eighteen, uncertain, desperate to prove he belongs. By the end, he’s not just older; he’s someone else entirely. Yoav loses friends, faith, and the version of himself that might have lived a simpler life. This is what coming of age looks like in a place where service isn’t a choice.
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Not a Love Story About War,
But a War Story About Love
A love that begins in grief—and can’t escape it.
Rona was Goldberg’s fiancée. Now she’s the only person who truly understands what Yoav has lost. Their connection is immediate, magnetic—and impossible to explain to anyone else.
But Yoav can’t silence the fear that he’s the runner-up. The consolation prize. That they’re together by default. He’s ashamed to tell people they’re a couple—afraid it will make Rona and him seem like they never really loved Goldberg.
And yet, in the silence after Goldberg’s death, she is the only thing that feels real.
Still, he can’t shake the guilt: Can something beautiful come from something so broken? And if it does—does that make him the villain?
Author's Note
I don’t think I suffer from PTSD. I definitely experienced traumas during my five-year service in Shayetet 13, the Israeli Navy SEALs, but these traumas—which mirror the journey of Yoav, the protagonist in this novel—didn’t evolve into post-traumas. I believe that’s because I write. I’ve been writing about the military experience for the past twenty years—mostly in screenplays, essays, and short stories, now in this novel that took more than a decade to complete. I often wonder how these traumas would have manifested had I not had writing as an outlet. Maybe writing about the military for twenty years is the post-trauma. Or, more accurately, a form of processing trauma. Perhaps writing saved my life; there’s no way to know for sure. But therein lies the power of writing, and why I love it so much.
I hesitate to label this book as strictly autobiographical, as that would be misleading. But dismissing it as pure fiction would be equally inaccurate. Ultimately, this world is one I know deeply because I lived it—and continued to live it long after my service ended.
Almost everything in this novel is rooted in reality. Every mission described in these pages really happened, and every soldier characterized in the novel is someone I know, to varying degrees. Some events happened to me, some to people I know, some to people I don’t, and, yes, some are purely made up. After more than a decade of writing and rewriting, I sometimes struggle to distinguish between what truly happened and what has been shaped by memory and imagination. There are moments I’m 90% certain happened to me, yet there’s a lingering 10% that wonders if I only feel like they happened. Ultimately, that uncertainty doesn’t matter because that feeling is what counts. The emotional truth. I have felt every single word and sentence in this book. As Tim O’Brien observes in The Things They Carried, the feeling of what happened can sometimes be more true than what actually happened.
This novel aims to be free of political noise. Yoav embodies my journey of growing up, falling in love with my country, and striving to serve it. He grapples with relationships shaped by the demands of war and military life. Like me, Yoav’s motivations are not political; he simply wants to do right by his country, his parents, his teammates, his friends, and the women who love him. He wants to do well and not disappoint those who care about him. Perhaps his greatest fear is that he’ll fail—a feeling that loomed over me in the lead-up to my enlistment, during my training, and even throughout my service. It’s a terrible thing to be afraid, and it has taken me a long time to overcome that fear.
My hope is that I’ve captured this time truthfully and represented my experiences and those of others accurately, and that this novel makes the Israeli experience more accessible to those who read it.