Israel in Translation

On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads poems written by Miri ben Simhon and translated by Lisa Katz. Ben Simhon was born January 13, 1950, in Marseille, France. She was the youngest of three children of Moroccan parents from Fez, born on the family's way to the new state of Israel. In April of that year, the family arrived by boat and was settled in a Jerusalem transit camp. In 1955 the children and their mother moved to permanent housing in the Katamonim neighborhood in the western part of the city, home to many poor immigrants. Her four collections of poetry demonstrates a tremendous grasp of social reality and human power relations.

This is an excerpt from "Girl from the Slums (A Longitudinal Slice)":

"A dark girl with acne Aliza Alfandari in a place meant for others washes clothes as one who does God's bidding afterwards she'll scrub the floor arrange flowers in a vase. Her blouse matches her skirt. She doesn't care about the spots on her face and covers them with make-up. Her virtues don't depend on this at all. She fulfills her duties carefully and knows very well who's right and who isn't. Sometimes she explodes, but only for good reason, when you consider the fact that so many people don't know how to behave."

Miri ben Simhon died in 1996, in an auto accident.

Text: All poems by Miri ben Simhon, translated by Lisa Katz, Poetry International Rotterdam

Music: Reflection - Thomas Ben Tov Iche - Liebe Articulation - Thomas Ben Tov

On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads poems written by Miri ben Simhon and translated by Lisa Katz. Ben Simhon was born January 13, 1950, in Marseille, France. She was the youngest of three children of Moroccan parents from Fez, born on the family's way to the new state of Israel. In April of that year, the family arrived by boat and was settled in a Jerusalem transit camp. In 1955 the children and their mother moved to permanent housing in the Katamonim neighborhood in the western part of the city, home to many poor immigrants. Her four collections of poetry demonstrates a tremendous grasp of social reality and human power relations.

This is an excerpt from “Girl from the Slums (A Longitudinal Slice)”:

"A dark girl with acne
Aliza Alfandari
in a place meant for others
washes clothes
as one who does God’s bidding
afterwards she’ll scrub the floor
arrange flowers in a vase.
Her blouse matches her skirt.
She doesn’t care about the spots on her face
and covers them with make-up. Her virtues
don’t depend on this at all.
She fulfills her duties carefully
and knows very well who’s right and who isn’t.
Sometimes she explodes, but only for good reason,
when you consider the fact that so many people don’t know how to behave."

Miri ben Simhon died in 1996, in an auto accident. 

Text:
All poems by Miri ben Simhon, translated by Lisa Katz, Poetry International Rotterdam 

Music: 
Reflection - Thomas Ben Tov
Iche - Liebe
Articulation - Thomas Ben Tov

On this week's episode, host Marcela reads from Emile Habibi's picaresque novel The Secret Life of Saeed The Pessopitmist, translated by Salma K Jayyussi and Trevor LeGassick. The Secret Life of Saeed spans twenty years and two wars (1948 and 1967) and is an account of the life of the Palestinian Arab population which remained in the State of Israel after the mass exodus following each war. Saeed is a comic hero, the luckless fool, who has been compared to Voltaire's Candide and Hasek's Good Soldier Svejk.

This is an exerpt from "Research on the Origins of the Pessoptimists":

"When I alighted from the donkey, I found that I was taller than the military governor. I felt much relieved at being bigger than him without the help of the donkey's legs. So I settled comfortably into a chair in the school they had converted into the governor's headquarters. The blackboards were being used as Ping-Pong tables. There I sat, at ease, thanking God for making me taller than the military governor without the help of the donkey's legs. That's the way our family is and why we bear the name Pessoptimist."

Habibi's poetry was also featured on the podcast in September 2014.

Text: The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist, by Emile Habiby, translated by Salma K Jayyusi and Trevor LeGassick. Interlink Books, 2003.

Music:Le Trio Joubran - Majâz Le Trio Joubran - Masar

On this week's episode, host Marcela reads from Emile Habibi’s picaresque novel The Secret Life of Saeed The Pessopitmist, translated by Salma K Jayyussi and Trevor LeGassick. The Secret Life of Saeed spans twenty years and two wars (1948 and 1967) and is an account of the life of the Palestinian Arab population which remained in the State of Israel after the mass exodus following each war. Saeed is a comic hero, the luckless fool, who has been compared to Voltaire’s Candide and Hasek’s Good Soldier Svejk.

This is an exerpt from “Research on the Origins of the Pessoptimists”:

"When I alighted from the donkey, I found that I was taller than the military governor. I felt much relieved at being bigger than him without the help of the donkey’s legs. So I settled comfortably into a chair in the school they had converted into the governor’s headquarters. The blackboards were being used as Ping-Pong tables. There I sat, at ease, thanking God for making me taller than the military governor without the help of the donkey’s legs. That’s the way our family is and why we bear the name Pessoptimist."

Habibi's poetry was also featured on the podcast in September 2014. 

Text:
The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist, by Emile Habiby, translated by Salma K Jayyusi and Trevor LeGassick. Interlink Books, 2003.

Music:
Le Trio Joubran - Majâz
Le Trio Joubran - Masar

On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak takes us on a small excursion to Musrara, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, with poems by Liat Kaplan as our guide. Musrara was founded by upper class Christian Arabs in the late 19th century when people began to live outside the Old City of Jerusalem. During the War of Independence, the residents fled or were expelled. The neighborhood - inhabited by new olim from North Africa -was frequently exposed to snipers until 1967. In 1971, a second generation of Mizrahi Jews founded the Israeli Black Panther movement in the town. Today, the neighborhood is a symbol for the city's complexity and home to a vibrant cultural center.

This is an exerpt from Kaplan's poem On What is Outside the Photograph:

"When photographed, Mussrara is almost composed of the sum of her details, various types of enclosures: asbestos, containers, radiance among leaves, cages, barriers, plants, walls, trees, bushes. Doors, partitions, trapped sun rays, fences and cracks, ramparts, balconies, roofs. Cactuses. And more details: laundry, construction refuse, scaffoldings. Outside the photograph it has no existence. Now, while we look there is no existence outside the photograph."

Liat Kaplan was born on a Kibbutz and currently lives in Tel Aviv. She is the author of six collections of poetry, and her work has been widely anthologized. She frequently collaborates with painters, photographers, and composers. Kaplan has also worked as poetry editor for the Bialik Institute, Helicon, Pardes, Am Oved, and Carmel Publishers. She has worked as director, teacher, and workshop instructor at the Helicon School of poetry.

Text: Reading on Kaplan's poetry About Musrara

Music:Ibrahim Maalouf - Illusions Ibrahim Maalouf - Movement Ibrahim Maalouf - Verdict Between Waters and Waters, Ittai Rosenbaum and Liat Kaplan

On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak takes us on a small excursion to Musrara, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, with poems by Liat Kaplan as our guide. Musrara was founded by upper class Christian Arabs in the late 19th century when people began to live outside the Old City of Jerusalem. During the War of Independence, the residents fled or were expelled. The neighborhood - inhabited by new olim from North Africa -was frequently exposed to snipers until 1967. In 1971, a second generation of Mizrahi Jews founded the Israeli Black Panther movement in the town. Today, the neighborhood is a symbol for the city's complexity and home to a vibrant cultural center.

This is an exerpt from Kaplan's poem On What is Outside the Photograph:

"When photographed, Mussrara is almost composed of the sum of her details,
various types of enclosures: asbestos, containers, radiance among leaves, cages,
barriers, plants, walls, trees, bushes. Doors, partitions, trapped
sun rays, fences and cracks, ramparts, balconies, roofs. Cactuses.
And more details: laundry, construction refuse, scaffoldings.
Outside the photograph it has no existence.
Now, while we look
there is no existence outside the photograph."

Liat Kaplan was born on a Kibbutz and currently lives in Tel Aviv. She is the author of six collections of poetry, and her work has been widely anthologized. She frequently collaborates with painters, photographers, and composers. Kaplan has also worked as poetry editor for the Bialik Institute, Helicon, Pardes, Am Oved, and Carmel Publishers. She has worked as director, teacher, and workshop instructor at the Helicon School of poetry.

Text:
Reading on Kaplan's poetry
About Musrara

Music:
Ibrahim Maalouf - Illusions
Ibrahim Maalouf - Movement
Ibrahim Maalouf - Verdict
Between Waters and Waters, Ittai Rosenbaum and Liat Kaplan

On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads a selection of Avner Shat's short story, "Figs," which was published in his first book, Printed Circuits in 1994. Here is an excerpt from the story:

"The years went by, and not a single daughter came to the world. The women were getting older, fewer babies were born, and I was the last girl born here. There is no girl younger than me in the village, no sister nor niece, and today I shall marry a man, and no one is really sure whether to be happy or sad, for no one ever heard of such a thing, not even the army and the other people who came with it, those who wear no uniforms and walk around the village asking silly questions, those who erected a tent like nomads, with bizarre instruments in it, so my aunt says, where they cure people by pricking them or feeding them bitter hard beans, and request you to do odd things and movements and to answer questions about drawings, and even those knowledgeable people have never heard of a wonder such as ours, a place where only males are born."

Text: "Figs" by Avner Shats

Music:Bill Frisell - Gone Just Like a Train

On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads a selection of Avner Shat's short story, "Figs," which was published in his first book, Printed Circuits in 1994.  Here is an excerpt from the story:

"The years went by, and not a single daughter came to the world. The women were getting older, fewer babies were born, and I was the last girl born here. There is no girl younger than me in the village, no sister nor niece, and today I shall marry a man, and no one is really sure whether to be happy or sad, for no one ever heard of such a thing, not even the army and the other people who came with it, those who wear no uniforms and walk around the village asking silly questions, those who erected a tent like nomads, with bizarre instruments in it, so my aunt says, where they cure people by pricking them or feeding them bitter hard beans, and request you to do odd things and movements and to answer questions about drawings, and even those knowledgeable people have never heard of a wonder such as ours, a place where only males are born."

Text:
“Figs” by Avner Shats 

Music:
Bill Frisell - Gone Just Like a Train

On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads selections of poet Tal Nitzán's book At the End of Sleep. It's an anthology of her poems, translated from the Hebrew by Tal Nitzán, Vivian Eden, Irit Sela, Aliza Raz, and Rachel Tzvia Back. Here is an excerpt from her poem "In the Time of Cholera":

"Facing one another we turn our backs to the world's calamities. Behind our closed eyes and curtains, both heat and war erupted at once. The heat will calm down first, the faint breeze won't bring back the boys who have been shot, won't cool down the wrath of the living. Even if it tarry, the fire will come, many waters won't quench, etc. Our arms as well can only reach our own bodies: We are a small crowd incited to bite, to cling to each other, to barricade ourselves in bed while in the ozone above us, a mocking smile cracks wide open."

Nitzan's poems are often concerned with the discrepancies between the domestic and internal world, and the injustice of the exterior world in which the most private bodies are placed. In June 2015 we featured the work of the poet Tal Nitzán. You can find a link to that podcast here.

Text: At the End of Sleep, An Anthology, by Tal Nitzán. Translated by Tal Nitzán, Vivian Eden, Irit Sela, Aliza Raz, and Rachel Tzavia Back. Restless Books, 2014.

Music:Big Lazy - Amnesia Big Lazy - Elephant Walk

On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads selections of poet Tal Nitzán's book At the End of Sleep. It's an anthology of her poems, translated from the Hebrew by Tal Nitzán, Vivian Eden, Irit Sela, Aliza Raz, and Rachel Tzvia Back. Here is an excerpt from her poem "In the Time of Cholera":

"Facing one another
we turn our backs to the world’s calamities.
Behind our closed eyes and curtains,
both heat and war erupted at once.
The heat will calm down first,
the faint breeze won’t bring back
the boys who have been shot,
won’t cool down the wrath of the living.
Even if it tarry, the fire will come,
many waters won’t quench, etc.
Our arms as well
can only reach our own bodies:
We are a small crowd
incited to bite, to cling to each other,
to barricade ourselves in bed
while in the ozone above us,
a mocking smile cracks wide open."

Nitzan’s poems are often concerned with the discrepancies between the domestic and internal world, and the injustice of the exterior world in which the most private bodies are placed. In June 2015 we featured the work of the poet Tal Nitzán. You can find a link to that podcast here.

Text:
At the End of Sleep, An Anthology, by Tal Nitzán. Translated by Tal Nitzán, Vivian Eden, Irit Sela, Aliza Raz, and Rachel Tzavia Back. Restless Books, 2014.

Music:
Big Lazy - Amnesia
Big Lazy - Elephant Walk