Israel in Translation

Tonight is Lag B'Omer, the Jewish holiday of light celebrated by lighting bonfires. Here's a glimpse of poet Agi Mishol's very own Lag B'Omer bonfire:

You piss on my love as if

it were a bonfire, extinguishing it

ember by ember with the arrogance

of the perfect crime...

One of Israel's most popular living poets, Agi Mishol's work has been described thus by literary scholar Dan Miron:

In contemporary Israeli poetry, intense, white flames appear against the dark, burning background, whose smoke is greater than the fire… Agi Mishol’s poetry is one of the brightest of these flames.

Texts:

“Sermon at Latrun” translated by Joanna Chen

“Wax Flowers” translated by Joanna Chen

Further Reading: Look There, translated by Lisa Katz, Graywolf Press, St. Paul, MN, 2006

Music:

Rivka Zohar - Rabi Akivah (lyrics by Dahlia Ravikovitch)

Maya Mishol - Rakavet Tachana

Tonight is Lag B'Omer, the Jewish holiday of light celebrated by lighting bonfires. Here's a glimpse of poet Agi Mishol's very own Lag B'Omer bonfire:

You piss on my love as if

it were a bonfire, extinguishing it

ember by ember with the arrogance

of the perfect crime...

One of Israel's most popular living poets, Agi Mishol's work has been described thus by literary scholar Dan Miron:

In contemporary Israeli poetry, intense, white flames appear against the dark, burning background, whose smoke is greater than the fire… Agi Mishol’s poetry is one of the brightest of these flames.

Texts:

“Sermon at Latrun” translated by Joanna Chen

“Wax Flowers” translated by Joanna Chen

Further Reading: Look There, translated by Lisa Katz, Graywolf Press, St. Paul, MN, 2006

Music:

Rivka Zohar - Rabi Akivah (lyrics by Dahlia Ravikovitch)

Maya Mishol - Rakavet Tachana

A few weeks ago, Erez Biton was awarded the Israel Prize for literature, becoming the first Mizrahi Jew to receive the prize. Of Moroccan descent, he was born in Algeria in 1942 and arrived in Israel in 1948 via France.

After a joint reading with Yehuda Amichai in Arad, a town bordering the Negev and Judean Deserts, the two poets traveled back to Jerusalem together. Biton asked Amichai to describe for him the essence of the desert as seen along the road. In response, Amichai held Bitton's hand for a few moments, saying nothing. Then Biton said: "Now I understand."

Host Marcela Sulak reads the short poem Biton wrote about this experience, "To Say Desert." And she explains how his work is connected to his blindness, emphasizing the unity between people and their landscape.

Texts:

Thanks to Mitch Ginsberg and his The Times of Israel article.

Poems “To Say Desert,” “The Dog and His Master,” and “The Wail of Women” translated by Tzippi Keller.

Further reading: The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself, Ed. Burnshaw, Carmi, et. al.

Music:

The Andalusian Orchestra - Moroccan Wedding (lyrics by Erez Biton)

Zohra Al-Fassia - Ayta Bidâwiyya

A few weeks ago, Erez Biton was awarded the Israel Prize for literature, becoming the first Mizrahi Jew to receive the prize. Of Moroccan descent, he was born in Algeria in 1942 and arrived in Israel in 1948 via France.

After a joint reading with Yehuda Amichai in Arad, a town bordering the Negev and Judean Deserts, the two poets traveled back to Jerusalem together. Biton asked Amichai to describe for him the essence of the desert as seen along the road. In response, Amichai held Bitton's hand for a few moments, saying nothing. Then Biton said: "Now I understand."

Host Marcela Sulak reads the short poem Biton wrote about this experience, "To Say Desert." And she explains how his work is connected to his blindness, emphasizing the unity between people and their landscape.

Texts:

Thanks to Mitch Ginsberg and his The Times of Israel article.

Poems “To Say Desert,” “The Dog and His Master,” and “The Wail of Women” translated by Tzippi Keller.

Further reading: The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself, Ed. Burnshaw, Carmi, et. al.

Music:

The Andalusian Orchestra - Moroccan Wedding (lyrics by Erez Biton)

Zohra Al-Fassia - Ayta Bidâwiyya

We look at how Amos Oz, in his memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness, describes what happened the euphoric night the UN voted to establish a Jewish state.

We look at how Amos Oz, in his memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness, describes what happened the euphoric night the UN voted to establish a Jewish state.

My face is beautiful when I am understood,

it expands to the size of a broad gate

in hundreds of shades of color on the paper

in the clay’s angles and cuts.

These are the final lines of Maya Bejerano's poem "Data Processing 60," translated by Miri Kubovy, which host Marcela Sulak reads in today' podcast. She also reads "Data Processing 10." As you can tell, poetry is a kind of linguistic and emotional laboratory for Bejerano - a place to process a variety of data.

Bejerano was born in Kibbutz Elon in 1949. She's published ten volumes of poetry, a children’s book, a book of essays, and two short story collections, which have won her the Prime Minister's Prize, the Bernstein Prize, and the Bialik Prize. Her poems have also been set to music, and we listen to some during the podcast.

Texts:

Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry. Translated and edited by Tzippi Keller. Suny Press, 2008.

The Defiant Muse: Hebrew Feminist Poets from Antiquity: A Bilingual Anthology. Feminist Press CUNY, 1999.

Music:

Yossi Mar Chaim - Wall of Joy (Voice Drawings by Etti Ben Zaken, lyrics by Maya Bejerano)

Shlomit Aharon - Ostrich (lyrics by Maya Bejerano)

My face is beautiful when I am understood,

it expands to the size of a broad gate

in hundreds of shades of color on the paper

in the clay’s angles and cuts.

These are the final lines of Maya Bejerano's poem "Data Processing 60," translated by Miri Kubovy, which host Marcela Sulak reads in today' podcast. She also reads "Data Processing 10." As you can tell, poetry is a kind of linguistic and emotional laboratory for Bejerano - a place to process a variety of data.

Bejerano was born in Kibbutz Elon in 1949. She's published ten volumes of poetry, a children’s book, a book of essays, and two short story collections, which have won her the Prime Minister's Prize, the Bernstein Prize, and the Bialik Prize. Her poems have also been set to music, and we listen to some during the podcast.

Texts:

Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry. Translated and edited by Tzippi Keller. Suny Press, 2008.

The Defiant Muse: Hebrew Feminist Poets from Antiquity: A Bilingual Anthology. Feminist Press CUNY, 1999.

Music:

Yossi Mar Chaim - Wall of Joy (Voice Drawings by Etti Ben Zaken, lyrics by Maya Bejerano)

Shlomit Aharon - Ostrich (lyrics by Maya Bejerano)

If Passover is the defining Jewish holiday, then Yehuda Amichai is Israel's defining poet. Host Marcela Sulak reads some of his interpretations of the foundational Passover narrative, as we listen to music set to his words.

In his poem "Jewish Travel," Amichai imagines Moses standing on Mount Nebo, staring into the Promised Land - a land he would never enter:

He yearned for the land of Canaan he would never see,but he turned east, toward the desert of those forty years,and wrote the Torah as a travel book,a memoir, every chapter with something very personalthat was his alone...

Text:

Open Closed Open, by Yehuda Amichai. Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. Harcourt, Inc., 2000.

Music:

The Place In Which We're Right - Yoni Rechter and Rona Kenan

By The Well Of My Birthplace - Ofra Haza

God Pities Kindergarden Children - Suzy Miller

If Passover is the defining Jewish holiday, then Yehuda Amichai is Israel's defining poet. Host Marcela Sulak reads some of his interpretations of the foundational Passover narrative, as we listen to music set to his words. 

In his poem "Jewish Travel," Amichai imagines Moses standing on Mount Nebo, staring into the Promised Land - a land he would never enter:

He yearned for the land of Canaan he would never see,
but he turned east, toward the desert of those forty years,
and wrote the Torah as a travel book,
a memoir, every chapter with something very personal
that was his alone...

Text:

Open Closed Open, by Yehuda Amichai. Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. Harcourt, Inc., 2000. 

Music:

The Place In Which We're Right - Yoni Rechter and Rona Kenan

By The Well Of My Birthplace - Ofra Haza

God Pities Kindergarden Children - Suzy Miller