Israel in Translation

Today we explore the etrog, a powerful symbol of the holiday of Sukkot, through a short story by Shai Agnon and a poem by Orit Gidali.

Agnon's story 'That Tzaddik’s Etrog,' translated by Shira Leibowitz and Moshe Kohn, is a parable about a rabbi who sells his tefillin in order to buy a perfect etrog for Sukkot. Gidali's poem is about the fragility of the etrog - she talks of wrapping her son in cotton wool "so that the world around you will treat you like an etrog."

Compared to the other three Sukkot 'species' (lulav, haddas, and aravah), which are each deficient in either smell, taste, or both, the etrog has both a good taste and a good smell, symbolizing those who have both Torah and good deeds.

Wishing you all good taste and good smell, chag sameach!

Texts:

S. Y. Agnon, A Book That Was Lost and other stories. Edited and introduced by Alan Mintz and Anne Golomb Hoffman. Schocken Books, 1995

Orit Gidali, Smichut [Closing In], 2009.

Music:

Adi Ran - You are Holy

Adi Ran - דשטותא מילי

Today we explore the etrog, a powerful symbol of the holiday of Sukkot, through a short story by Shai Agnon and a poem by Orit Gidali.

Agnon's story 'That Tzaddik’s Etrog,' translated by Shira Leibowitz and Moshe Kohn, is a parable about a rabbi who sells his tefillin in order to buy a perfect etrog for Sukkot. Gidali's poem is about the fragility of the etrog - she talks of wrapping her son in cotton wool "so that the world around you will treat you like an etrog."

Compared to the other three Sukkot 'species' (lulav, haddas, and aravah), which are each deficient in either smell, taste, or both, the etrog has both a good taste and a good smell, symbolizing those who have both Torah and good deeds.

Wishing you all good taste and good smell, chag sameach!

Texts:

S. Y. Agnon, A Book That Was Lost and other stories. Edited and introduced by Alan Mintz and Anne Golomb Hoffman. Schocken Books, 1995

Orit Gidali, Smichut [Closing In], 2009.

Music:

Adi Ran - You are Holy

Adi Ran - דשטותא מילי

Today we explore Yom Kippur through the poetry of Yehuda Amichai and Shelley Elkayam, and the music of Leonard Cohen and Chayim Moshe.

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, when God seals the verdict on each person's fate for the coming year in the Book of Life.

Amichai's poem refers to the 'Ne'ila' - the closing prayer, shortly before sunset, when heaven’s 'gates of prayer' will be closed for the year. The subject has a moving encounter with an "Arab’s hole-in-the-wall shop" near Jerusalem's Damascus Gate, which reminds him of his father's shop that was burned down.

Shelley Elkayam is an eighth-generation native of Haifa, from a bilingual Ladino-/Hebrew-speaking family. The excerpt from her poem 'Yes Indeed I’ll Answer God' is written from the point of view of God. It ends: "Enough. / This is judgment. / And I take the verdict upon myself / at its word."

Texts:

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

'The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai,' translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. University of California Press, 1996.

Music:

Leonard Cohen - Who By Fire

Chayim Moshe - All My Vows

Today we explore Yom Kippur through the poetry of Yehuda Amichai and Shelley Elkayam, and the music of Leonard Cohen and Chayim Moshe.

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, when God seals the verdict on each person's fate for the coming year in the Book of Life.

Amichai's poem refers to the 'Ne'ila' - the closing prayer, shortly before sunset, when heaven’s 'gates of prayer' will be closed for the year. The subject has a moving encounter with an "Arab’s hole-in-the-wall shop" near Jerusalem's Damascus Gate, which reminds him of his father's shop that was burned down.

Shelley Elkayam is an eighth-generation native of Haifa, from a bilingual Ladino-/Hebrew-speaking family. The excerpt from her poem 'Yes Indeed I’ll Answer God' is written from the point of view of God. It ends: "Enough. / This is judgment. / And I take the verdict upon myself / at its word."

Texts:

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

'The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai,' translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. University of California Press, 1996.

Music:

Leonard Cohen - Who By Fire

Chayim Moshe - All My Vows

Born in Tel Aviv in 1923, Haim Gouri is a poet, novelist, documentary film maker, journalist, and the author of a book on the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann.

During World War II, Gouri joined the elite strike force of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary force operating during Mandate Palestine, called the 'Palmach.' He was sent to Hungary to help holocaust survivors come to Palestine. This experience inspired Gouri’s documentary film The 81st Blow, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1974.

Gouri's first book of poetry, published in 1949, is heavily influenced by his experience in the Palmach during the war of 1948. His later books become more abstract.

Today Marcela Sulak reads from his poems 'Current Account' and 'Piyyut for Rosh Hashanah,' which both deal with themes of justice and repentance at Jewish new year.

Here are the final lines from 'Current Account': "And again, as always in the Land of Israel, / the stones remember. / The earth does not cover. / Justice cuts through the mountains."

Text:

Modern Hebrew Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. and trans. Ruth Finer Mintz. University of California Press, 1966.

The Stones Remember: Native Israeli Poetry. Eds. Moshe Dror, Barbara Goldberg & Giora Leshem. The Word Works, 1991.

Music:

Palmach Songs

Song for Tishrei - sung by Chava Alberstein, words by Rachel Shapiro, and music by Danny Amihud

Born in Tel Aviv in 1923, Haim Gouri is a poet, novelist, documentary film maker, journalist, and the author of a book on the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann.

During World War II, Gouri joined the elite strike force of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary force operating during Mandate Palestine, called the 'Palmach.' He was sent to Hungary to help holocaust survivors come to Palestine. This experience inspired Gouri’s documentary film The 81st Blow, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1974.

Gouri's first book of poetry, published in 1949, is heavily influenced by his experience in the Palmach during the war of 1948. His later books become more abstract.

Today Marcela Sulak reads from his poems 'Current Account' and 'Piyyut for Rosh Hashanah,' which both deal with themes of justice and repentance at Jewish new year.

Here are the final lines from 'Current Account': "And again, as always in the Land of Israel, / the stones remember. / The earth does not cover. / Justice cuts through the mountains."

Text:

Modern Hebrew Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. and trans. Ruth Finer Mintz. University of California Press, 1966.

The Stones Remember: Native Israeli Poetry. Eds. Moshe Dror, Barbara Goldberg & Giora Leshem. The Word Works, 1991.

Music:

Palmach Songs

Song for Tishrei - sung by Chava Alberstein, words by Rachel Shapiro, and music by Danny Amihud

We're now in the month of Elul, the last month in the Jewish calendar, which leads up to the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur festivals. We explore Elul's themes of creation and forgiveness through two poems by Rivka Miriam.

Rivka Miriam was a Jerusalem-born child prodigy, who has gone on to publish 12 collections of poetry, two collections of short stories, and several children’s books.

According to her mother, her parents were among the 20 out of a population of 6,000 from their home town in Poland to survive the Holocaust.

Rivka Miriam’s poetry is touched by both gratitude and loss. Writer David Grossman says, “Her Hebrew is a singular combination of all the levels of the language, ancient as well as new.”

Here are the last lines of her poem about Elul: "Only forgiveness itself / blurred as the line between dusk and sunset / fell on its knees before itself."

Text: These Mountains: Selected Poems of Rivka Miriam. Translated by Linda Stern Zisquit. Toby Press, 2009.

Music:

Arik Einstein - Jewish Autum

Rali Margalit - A Journey to the Lyrics of Rivka Miriam: touching the non-existent

We're now in the month of Elul, the last month in the Jewish calendar, which leads up to the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur festivals. We explore Elul's themes of creation and forgiveness through two poems by Rivka Miriam.

Rivka Miriam was a Jerusalem-born child prodigy, who has gone on to publish 12 collections of poetry, two collections of short stories, and several children’s books.

According to her mother, her parents were among the 20 out of a population of 6,000 from their home town in Poland to survive the Holocaust.

Rivka Miriam’s poetry is touched by both gratitude and loss. Writer David Grossman says, “Her Hebrew is a singular combination of all the levels of the language, ancient as well as new.”

Here are the last lines of her poem about Elul: "Only forgiveness itself / blurred as the line between dusk and sunset / fell on its knees before itself."

Text: These Mountains: Selected Poems of Rivka Miriam. Translated by Linda Stern Zisquit. Toby Press, 2009.

Music:

Arik Einstein - Jewish Autum

Rali Margalit - A Journey to the Lyrics of Rivka Miriam: touching the non-existent

Yehuda Amichai is probably the most widely translated Hebrew poet since King David. He says, “I grew up in a very religious household... So the prayers, the language of prayer itself became a kind of natural language for me.” But Amichai revised the national, Biblical narrative into a personal love story, making space for individual agency and narrative freedom.

Born Ludwig Pfueffer in Wurzburg, Germany, Amichai immigrated to Israel with his family in 1935, aged 11. He fought in the 1956 Sinai War and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, between and after which he began to publish novels and poetry, under the name Yehuda Amichai, which means “my people lives.”

His poetic series Jerusalem 1967 shows the marks these wars left on him and on the country. Host Marcela Sulak recites the poem 'Wildpeace,' translated by Amichai along with British poet Ted Hughes, whose last stanza reads: "Let it come / like wildflowers, / suddenly, because the field / must have it: wildpeace.

Text:

Yehuda Amichai: Poems of Jerusalem and Love Poems, trans. various (Sheep Meadow Press).

The Early Books of Yehuda Amichai, trans. various (Sheep Meadow Press).

Open Closed Poem, by Yehuda Amichai, trans. Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld (Harcourt, Inc.).

Music:

Chava Alberstein - Saturday Night Song (Come to me tonight)Matti Caspi and Shlomo Gronich - God Has Pity On Kindergarten Children

Yehudit Raviz - Our Love

Yehuda Amichai is probably the most widely translated Hebrew poet since King David. He says, “I grew up in a very religious household... So the prayers, the language of prayer itself became a kind of natural language for me.” But Amichai revised the national, Biblical narrative into a personal love story, making space for individual agency and narrative freedom.

Born Ludwig Pfueffer in Wurzburg, Germany, Amichai immigrated to Israel with his family in 1935, aged 11. He fought in the 1956 Sinai War and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, between and after which he began to publish novels and poetry, under the name Yehuda Amichai, which means “my people lives.”

His poetic series Jerusalem 1967 shows the marks these wars left on him and on the country. Host Marcela Sulak recites the poem 'Wildpeace,' translated by Amichai along with British poet Ted Hughes, whose last stanza reads: "Let it come / like wildflowers, / suddenly, because the field / must have it: wildpeace.

Text:

Yehuda Amichai: Poems of Jerusalem and Love Poems, trans. various (Sheep Meadow Press).

The Early Books of Yehuda Amichai, trans. various (Sheep Meadow Press).

Open Closed Poem, by Yehuda Amichai, trans. Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld (Harcourt, Inc.).

Music:

Chava Alberstein - Saturday Night Song (Come to me tonight)
Matti Caspi and Shlomo Gronich - God Has Pity On Kindergarten Children

Yehudit Raviz - Our Love