Israel in Translation

Host Marcela Sulak reads an excerpt from Sarit Yishai-Levi's best-selling novel The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, recently published in Anthony Berris’s English translation. The novel spans four generations of Sefardic women whose family traces its history in Israel to the Spanish expulsion, and the story centers around the family’s stall in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.

"Gabriel returned to the shop. He despised the British more every day. He couldn’t stand their haughty presence as they walked through the market in groups in their pressed uniforms, as if they were the lords of the land. Some had come to Palestine from remote villages, simple country boys who’d shoveled cow shit in their English villages, and here in Palestine they behaved as if each of them was the son of the King of England."

Sarit Yishai-Levi, a journalist and author, was born in Jerusalem in 1947 to a Sephardic family that has lived in the city for seven generations. She has published four non-fiction books, the first of which is The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, which received the Publishers Association's Gold and Platinum Prizes (2014) and the Steimatzky Prize for best-selling book of the year (2014). It is now being made into a feature film.

Text:The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi. Translated by Anthony Berris. St. Martin’s Press, 2016.

Music (all mentioned in the novel)

Host Marcela Sulak reads an excerpt from Sarit Yishai-Levi's best-selling novel The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, recently published in Anthony Berris’s English translation. The novel spans four generations of Sefardic women whose family traces its history in Israel to the Spanish expulsion, and the story centers around the family’s stall in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.

"Gabriel returned to the shop. He despised the British more every day. He couldn’t stand their haughty presence as they walked through the market in groups in their pressed uniforms, as if they were the lords of the land. Some had come to Palestine from remote villages, simple country boys who’d shoveled cow shit in their English villages, and here in Palestine they behaved as if each of them was the son of the King of England."

Sarit Yishai-Levi, a journalist and author, was born in Jerusalem in 1947 to a Sephardic family that has lived in the city for seven generations. She has published four non-fiction books, the first of which is The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, which received the Publishers Association's Gold and Platinum Prizes (2014) and the Steimatzky Prize for best-selling book of the year (2014). It is now being made into a feature film.

Text:
The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi. Translated by Anthony Berris. St. Martin’s Press, 2016.

Music (all mentioned in the novel)

Yehuda Amichai is probably the best known Israeli poet in the world. Today, host Marcela Sulak celebrates the recent publication of Robert Alter’s The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai - the largest collection of Amichai’s poetry published in a single volume to date. Alter claims that a complete edition of Amichai’s poetry would be three times larger.

Marcela reads from the end of an epic, autobiographical poem “The Travels of the Last Benjamin of Tudela”:

"The players sat inside, the talkers on the verandah:half my love, my left hand, a quarter of a friend,a man half dead. The sound of the killed piecestossed into the wooden box is like distant thunder, heralding evil."

Text:The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. Edited by Robert Alter. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Music:Shimon Bar - Masa'ot Binyamin MiTudelaAlbioni - Adagio in G Minor

Yehuda Amichai is probably the best known Israeli poet in the world. Today, host Marcela Sulak celebrates the recent publication of Robert Alter’s The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai - the largest collection of Amichai’s poetry published in a single volume to date. Alter claims that a complete edition of Amichai’s poetry would be three times larger.

Marcela reads from the end of an epic, autobiographical poem “The Travels of the Last Benjamin of Tudela”:

"The players sat inside, the talkers on the verandah:
half my love, my left hand, a quarter of a friend,
a man half dead. The sound of the killed pieces
tossed into the wooden box is like distant thunder, heralding evil."

Text:
The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. Edited by Robert Alter. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Music:
Shimon Bar - Masa'ot Binyamin MiTudela
Albioni - Adagio in G Minor

In the Bus/Purim Eve:

"Little kids in costume giggle happilyreal flower childrenand Margalit Tzan’ani sings'The Honey in the Groove'"

Today, host Marcela Sulak takes an unusual approach to Purim, reading excerpts from Tikva Levi’s "Purim Sequence," translated by Ammiel Alcalay. We intersperse the first parts of Levi's poem, a Purim bus journey, with excerpts from Itzik Manger’s "Songs of the Megillah" — a retelling of the Purim story in the Book of Esther. Tikva Levi was a feminist activist Mizrahi Jew, born in Ashkelon of Iraqi parents. She died in 2012, at the age of 52. Her life was devoted to the educational rights of Mizrahi Jews in Israel.

Text:Keys to the Garden. New Israeli Writing. Edited by Ammiel Alcalay. City Lights Books, 1996.

Music:Songs of the Megilla - Itzik MangerNafas - Rabih Abou-Khalil

In the Bus/Purim Eve:

"Little kids in costume giggle happily
real flower children
and Margalit Tzan’ani sings
'The Honey in the Groove'"

Today, host Marcela Sulak takes an unusual approach to Purim, reading excerpts from Tikva Levi’s "Purim Sequence," translated by Ammiel Alcalay. We intersperse the first parts of Levi's poem, a Purim bus journey, with excerpts from Itzik Manger’s "Songs of the Megillah" — a retelling of the Purim story in the Book of Esther. Tikva Levi was a feminist activist Mizrahi Jew, born in Ashkelon of Iraqi parents. She died in 2012, at the age of 52. Her life was devoted to the educational rights of Mizrahi Jews in Israel.

Text:
Keys to the Garden. New Israeli Writing. Edited by Ammiel Alcalay. City Lights Books, 1996.

Music:
Songs of the Megilla - Itzik Manger
Nafas - Rabih Abou-Khalil

Among the excellent new Israeli books to have appeared in English translation in 2015, is Else Lasker-Schüler’s collected poems, My Blue Piano. Host Marcela Sulak reads several poems from the collection, including the title poem:

"At home I have a blue piano,I, who cannot play a note.

It stands in the gloom of the cellar door,now that the whole world has grown coarse..."

Born in Germany in 1869, Lasker-Schüler became a leader of Berlin's Expressionist movement, coining the name "Blue Rider" for her friend Franz Marc's famous school of painting. A few months after receiving one of Germany's highest literary honors, she was assaulted in the streets by the Nazis at the age of 63. After fleeing to Switzerland and Alexandria, she settled in Jerusalem. She died of heart failure before the final defeat of the Nazi regime.

Text:My Blue Piano by Else Lasker-Schüler. Translated by Brooks Haxton. Syracuse University Press, 2015.

Music (all lyrics by Else Lasker-Schüler):Maya Amir - Mein Blaues KlavierGalia Shargal - ImiElinoar Moav - Bo Elai BaLeil

Among the excellent new Israeli books to have appeared in English translation in 2015, is Else Lasker-Schüler’s collected poems, My Blue Piano. Host Marcela Sulak reads several poems from the collection, including the title poem:

"At home I have a blue piano,
I, who cannot play a note.

It stands in the gloom of the cellar door,
now that the whole world has grown coarse..."

Born in Germany in 1869, Lasker-Schüler became a leader of Berlin's Expressionist movement, coining the name "Blue Rider" for her friend Franz Marc's famous school of painting. A few months after receiving one of Germany's highest literary honors, she was assaulted in the streets by the Nazis at the age of 63. After fleeing to Switzerland and Alexandria, she settled in Jerusalem. She died of heart failure before the final defeat of the Nazi regime.

Text:
My Blue Piano by Else Lasker-Schüler. Translated by Brooks Haxton. Syracuse University Press, 2015.

Music (all lyrics by Else Lasker-Schüler):
Maya Amir - Mein Blaues Klavier
Galia Shargal - Imi
Elinoar Moav - Bo Elai BaLeil

Host Marcela Sulak reads from the opening of Orly Castel-Bloom’s short story, “Heathcliff,” in which a young girl’s crush on the literary figure, Heathcliff, follows her about the city of Tel Aviv. In Castel-Bloom’s signature narrative style, it is difficult to tell reality from imagination, and the results are menacing.

“Smadar trailed along Ibn Gvirol Street. The taste of the cigarette was bitter. She looked around to make sure that nobody could see her and spat a big gob onto the pavement. When she raised her eyes, she turned red. Two eyes were watching her. They were Heathcliff’s eyes. Green, slightly slanting and focused on her…“

Castel-Bloom was born in Tel Aviv in 1960 to parents originally from Egypt. A leading voice in Hebrew literature, she currently teaches creative writing at Tel Aviv University. Her post-modern classic, Dolly City, has been included in UNESCO’s Collection of Representative Works, and was nominated in 2007 as one of the ten most important books since the creation of the State of Israel.

Text:Orly Castel-Bloom, “Heathcliff,” translated by Dalya Bilu, 50 Stories from Israel: An Anthology. Ed. Zisi Stavi.

Further reading:Orly Castel-Bloom, Dolly City, translated by Dalya Bilu. Dalkey Archive 2010.

Music:REO – Bemakom AcherDesire – Under Your SpellEmily Karpel – Hey!

Host Marcela Sulak reads from the opening of Orly Castel-Bloom’s short story, “Heathcliff,” in which a young girl’s crush on the literary figure, Heathcliff, follows her about the city of Tel Aviv. In Castel-Bloom’s signature narrative style, it is difficult to tell reality from imagination, and the results are menacing.

“Smadar trailed along Ibn Gvirol Street. The taste of the cigarette was bitter. She looked around to make sure that nobody could see her and spat a big gob onto the pavement. When she raised her eyes, she turned red. Two eyes were watching her. They were Heathcliff’s eyes. Green, slightly slanting and focused on her…“

Castel-Bloom was born in Tel Aviv in 1960 to parents originally from Egypt. A leading voice in Hebrew literature, she currently teaches creative writing at Tel Aviv University. Her post-modern classic, Dolly City, has been included in UNESCO’s Collection of Representative Works, and was nominated in 2007 as one of the ten most important books since the creation of the State of Israel.

Text:
Orly Castel-Bloom, “Heathcliff,” translated by Dalya Bilu, 50 Stories from Israel: An Anthology. Ed. Zisi Stavi.

Further reading:
Orly Castel-Bloom, Dolly City, translated by Dalya Bilu. Dalkey Archive 2010.

Music:
REO – Bemakom Acher
Desire – Under Your Spell
Emily Karpel – Hey!