Because a very limited amount of Hendel's work has been translated into English, a correspondingly low number of English-speaking critics have looked closely at her work. In Jeff Green's Jerusalem Post review of her 1996 short story collection, An Innocent Breakfast, he notes that Hendel has been writing fiction on a high level for several decades, and she would probably figure on every knowledgeable critic's list of significant Israeli writers, though she is not as well known as she might be. But critics are fairly universal in their appreciation of Hendel's use of language and her willingness to approach difficult subjects such as familial strife and mental collapse.

Matt Nesvisky, writing a review in the Jerusalem Post of Six Israeli Novellas, in which Hendel's Small Change appears, praises the author for having written one of the two best stories in the collection. Hendel's novella, according to Nesvisky...