Israel in Translation

Natan Zach was born in 1930 in Berlin, and he immigrated to Haifa in 1936. He has had a great influence on the development of modern Hebrew poetry as editor and critic, as well as translator and poet.

In an article from 1959, Zach favored 'a "poetics of modesty": simplicity in theme, syntax, and diction; understated rhetoric, avoidance of symbolistic intricacy, and flexible rhyme patterns; metrical and rhythmic structures that follow and reflect the flow of conversational language, refraining from lofty, elevated, cerebral, and flashy poetic devices and structures while employing irony in a subtle, distilled fashion; in short, an appealingly simple poetics without undue simplification.

Text:

Peter Cole: Hymns and Qualms. Selected Poems and Translations. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

Adi Keissar, an Israeli poet of Yemenite descent, is the founder of the popular Ars Poetica, a project which initiated a new wave of Mizrahi poetry for the masses in the form of readings combined with Middle Eastern music and dancing. Keissar received the Bernstein Literary Award for her first book Black on Black (2014), and the Ministry of Culture Award for Young Poets in 2015. She is the editor of two Ars Poetica anthologies, and former editor of the Basta poetry section of the online journal Ha'okets. Her second collection of poetry, Loud Music, was published in 2016. Keissar's poetry has been translated into eight languages and has been published in various anthologies, journals and newspapers. In autumn 2015, Ha'aretz named her the most influential of contemporary poets.

Text:

Adi Keissar reading "I'm the Mizrahi"

"I'm the Mizrahi"

Adi Keissar reading "For Those" with subtitles

"Black on Black" by Adi Keissar, translated by Ayelet Tsabari

"A Man sets himself on fire" by Adi Keissar, translated by Ayelet Tsabari

"Woman of her words" by Tamar Lafontaine

Music:

Wamid by Yemen Blues

Baraca by Yemen Blues

Yemen Blues by Yemen Blues

Today we focus on the work of a particular translator—Peter Cole. We've often featured Cole's translations, but almost always his work from antiquity, particularly from The Dream of the Poem, and also his Arabic language translations of Taha Muhammad Ali. But Peter Cole also translates from the twenty and twenty-first centuries, and today we'll feature a selection from his anthology, Hymns and Qualms, New and Selected Poems and Translations.

Text:Peter Cole: Hymns and Qualms. New and Selected Poems and Translations. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017

Asenath Barzani, from the Iraqi Kurdistan region, was the first known woman rabbi in Jewish history. Born in 1590, she was the daughter of the eminent Rabbi Shmuel b. Netanel Ha-Levi of Kurdistan. Her father, a scholar and mystic with a large following, aimed to rectify the plight of his brethren, namely, the dearth of educated leaders. He built a yeshiva in Mosul where he hoped to train young men who would become community leaders and scholars. Since he had no sons, he trained his daughter to be a learned scholar of the highest order.

After Asenath's father died, her husband technically became the head of the Yeshiva, but in fact it was Asenath who taught the students who had come for rabbinic training. But she also wrote poetry in Hebrew and was famous for it. Today we'll spotlight some of her poetry.

Text:

Asenath's Petition, translated by Peter Cole in The Defiant Muse: Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity to the Present. Edited by Shirley Kaufman, Galit Hasan-Rokem, and Tamar S. Hess. New York: The Feminist Press, 1999.

The Kurdish Project

Music:

Kurdit by Reuven Yamin

On the shores of Israel's Sea of Galilee lies the city of Tiberias, and in Shemi Zarhin's novel Some Day, it is a place bursting with sexuality and longing for love. Zarhin's hypnotic writing renders a painfully delicious vision of individual lives behind Israel's larger national story.

The air is saturated with smells of cooking and passion. Young Shlomi, who develops a remarkable culinary talent, has fallen for Ella, the strange neighbor with suicidal tendencies; his little brother Hilik obsessively collects words in a notebook. In the wild, selfish but magical grown-up world that swirls around them, a mother with a poet's soul mourns the deaths of literary giants while her handsome husband cheats on her both at home and abroad.

Shemi Zarhin was born in Tiberias in 1961, and is a novelist, film director, and screenwriter who has created some of the most critically acclaimed and award-winning films in the history of Israeli cinema, including Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi (2003), Aviva My Love (2006), and The World is Funny (2012). He now teaches filmmaking at the Sam Spiegel School in Jerusalem. Some Day is his first novel and was a best-seller in Israel.

Text:

Some Day by Shemi Zarhin. Translated by Yardenne Greenspan. New Vessel Press, 2013.

Music:

Etz Ha'Alon by Yehoram Gaon

Baladah LaChovesh by Yehoram Gaon

People are people. But sometimes it is difficult to maintain one's humanity under dehumanizing conditions. On today's episode, we share the work of one poet in Gaza whose poems and fragments open a tiny window into the Gaza strip, where only 5% of the water is potable, there is electricity for 5 hours a day, and only 55% of the population is employed. His name is Mosab, and he has created the Edward Said Library for Gaza.

"When a writer is motivated by empathy rather than sarcasm, his humor has the power to reach deep into the heart," Omri Herzog noted in his 2012 Haaretz review of Yirmi Pinkus' second novel, Petty Business, which is a tale of two families, related by marriage, who are shop owners in 1980s Israel.

The content is daring and unusual—middle-aged, petit bourgeois families are not the usual protagonists of Israeli literature, but Pinkus, who is also a graphic artist known for his humor, delivers a strangely compelling story. Marcela reads a section from near the beginning, in Yardenne Greenspan and Evan Fallenberg's new English translation.

Text: Petty Business by Yirmi Pinkus. Translated by Evan Fallenberg and Yardenne Greenspan. Syracuse University Press, 2017.

This episode features poems by Sheikha Helawy, a Bedouin-Israeli woman living in Jaffa, originally written in Arabic and in Hebrew and translated by Yosefa Raz.

Helawy was born in the unmarked Bedouin village of El-Roi, on the outskirts of the city of Haifa. Her village was destroyed in 1990 by the Israeli government. Helawy currently works as a supervisor and advisor at the Institute for Democratic Education in Israel. Her Arabic-language publications, published in Amman, Jordan, include two books of short stories, as well as a book of poetry. Her work has also been translated into French, German, and Hebrew.

Text: Four poems by Sheikha Helawy, translated by Yosefa Raz.

Music: Aman Demeysin by The Bridge Project

Moshe Sakal's novel, The Diamond Setter, is part mystery, part family history, and part myth. The plot centers around a lost blue diamond known as Sabakh that is brought into the local diamond cutter's shop. The story is told mainly from the point of view of shop owner's nephew and assistant, Tom, who, with his boyfriend Honi, becomes romantically involved with a young man from Damascus who may or may not be connected to the diamond.

Text: Moshe Sakal, The Diamond Setter. Translated by Jessica Cohen. Other Press, March 2018.

This past Saturday night, we celebrated the holiday of Shavuot. And in honor of the festival, we read from Emuna Elon's novel, If You Awaken Love, translated by David Hazony, and published by Toby Press in 2006.

Music:

Kululam - Chai

Rav Shlomo Carlebach - Pe'er Vekavod Notnim Lishmo

Text:

If You Awaken Love, Emuna Elon, translated by David Hazony, Toby Press, 2006