Israel In Translation

For this Yom Kippur, we read a section of S. Y. Agnon's Twofold translated by Jeffrey Saks. Text: Twofold, by S. Y. Agnon, trans. Jeffrey Saks, in The Outcast and Other Tales. Toby Press, 2017

Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the ten days known as the Days of Awe. Today we feature works by Yehuda Amichai and Ibn Gavirol fitting of these Days of Repentance. Text: The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, edited by Robert Alter. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2015. Vulture in a Cage. Poems of Ibn Gavirol. Translated by Raymond P. Scheindlin. Archipelago Books, 2016 Music: Exploring the Convoluted Singularity by OKAM vs ps

Next week, from Sunday night until Wednesday at sunset, we celebrate Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year. This year, Marcela focuses on the figure of Isaac, son of Abraham, because the Torah readings for both days of the holiday focus on Sarah’s conceiving and giving birth to Isaac, Hagar’s banishment into the desert, and also on the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah. Text: Amir Gilboa, “Isaac,” translated by Arieh Sachs in The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself, ed. Stanley Burnshaw, T. Carmi, et. al. “Sarah Laughed Again,” and “Isaac in Reverse” from Twenty Girls to Envy Me. New and Selected Poems of Orit Gidali, translated by Marcela Sulak. University of Texas press, 2016. “Hagar” by Yocheved Bat-Miriam, translated by Zvi Jagendrof, in The Defiant Muse. Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity to the Present. Ed. Shirly Kaufman, et al. The Feminist Press, 1999. Music: Avinu Malkeinu by Barbara Streisand Avinu Malkeinu (feat. Maria Katz) by Andrey Makarevich & Евгений Борец Avinu Malkeinu by Lior Previous Rosh Hash

Today we feature poems translated this past spring and summer by some of Marcela's translation seminar students at Bar-Ilan University. After studying and discussing various translation theories, and becoming familiar with different poetic traditions and styles, these graduate and undergraduate students chose a poet and translated their work. The poems in this episode were translated by Aya Abu Riash, Yavni Bar-Yam, and Hiba Jiryis.   Text: “Bigger Than All Words” by Nizzar Qabbani, translated by Aya Abu Riash “The Big Billybong” by Roy “Chicky” Arad, translated by Yavni Bar-Yam “A Prayer to the New Year” by Fadwa Tuqan, translated by Hiba Jiryis

This episode features a short story written by Sheikha Helawy, a Bedouin woman living in Jaffa. The story, published on the Short Story Project, was originally written in Arabic and was translated by Basma Ghalayini. Helawy was born in the unmarked Bedouin village of El-Roi, on the outskirts of the city of Haifa. 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: Sheikah Helawy, “R.A. Looks for His Eyes,” translated from Arabic by Basma Ghalayini.

David Avidan was born in Tel Aviv where he lived and worked as a self-described “poet, painter, filmmaker, publicist, and playwright.” He studied literature and philosophy during a short stint at Hebrew University. Avidan was often attacked by poetry critics who criticized him as being egocentric, chauvinistic, and technocratic. In an interview, he proclaimed: “My arena is the entire planet. Israel is but a small piece of land. I don’t work in Tel Aviv. I work from Tel Aviv.” The poems read in today's episode are translated by Tsippi Keller, from the new collection Futureman. Text: David Avidan, Futureman translated by Tsippi Keller, introduced by Anat Weisman. Phoneme Media, 2017.

Roy Hasan was born in 1983 in Hadera, Israel and is the author of two collections of poetry – The Dogs that Barked in our Childhood were Muzzled (Tangiers, 2014) and Golden Lions (Tangiers, 2016).  Michele Rosenthal translated several of Hasan's poems and says of Hasan, “He challenges the cultural gatekeepers to look beyond the traditional topics, tropes and metaphors toward a different, more inclusive version of Hebrew poetry that reflects the lived experience of those that have been traditionally left outside of the canon.” Text: Roy Hasan, If There’ll be Peace all the Arsim will Come, translated by Ron Makleff Roy Hasan, “The State of Ashkenaz,” and “Four in the Morning,” translated by Michele Rosenthal Music: Yemen Blues - Tonight I'll Be Pretty Ft. Mariem Hassan

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

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 Femin

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

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

In honor of the holy month of Ramadan observed by Muslims worldwide, host Marcela Sulak reads an essay by Iman Jmal, a graduate student at Bar-Ilan University. Jmal is from Jatt in northern Israel and she writes about preparing a Ramadan meal with her mother, the shopping for which they must travel through a checkpoint.   Music: Approaching the Bridge – The Bridge Project Notre Wagon – The Bridge Project

This week’s podcast features Ilana Kurshan’s memoir If All the Seas Were Ink. Originally written in English, the text translates the study of the Daf Yomi, or “Daily Page,” of the Talmud, into a life story. The Talmud is the main book of rabbinic teachings spanning about 600 years. It is the basis for all codes of Jewish law. The memoir begins in the wake of a painful divorce, when Ilana decides to begin this 7 ½ year long study, one page at a time. More info on Bar Ilan's Writing Conference. Text: Ilana Kurshan, If All The Seas Were Ink. A memoir. St. Martin’s Press, 2017.

In this episode we read from David Grossman’s “Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel”, translated by Haim Watzman. The narrative that Grossman records are the words of Aouni Sbeit. Text: David Grossman, Sleeping on a Wire. Conversations with Palestinians in Israel. Translated by Haim Watzman. Ferrar, Strauss and Giroux. 1993 Music: My White and Brown Land by The Bridge Project