Israel In Translation

 Remembering Israel’s Nobel Laureate in Literature, Shai Agnon, and his masterpiece, Only Yesterday (Tmol Shilshom), which describes the founding of Tel Aviv and the first building outside the Old City of Jerusalem.Playlist: Rita - Take me Under Your WingVarious artists - Sleepy Jaffa (Nama Yafo Nama)

A teenaged spice-shop owner and professional scribe, Shmuel Hanagid wrote such scintillating and literary love letters that a client hired him for bigger and better things. His work was lost for nearly 1,000 years and rediscovered only in the 1930s. Book: The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 Music: Zahava Seewald and Zohara Abulafia - I would lay down my life

Hannah Szenes was only 23 years old when she was executed before a firing squad in Nazi-occupied Budapest. She was attempting to rescue Jews who were about to be deported to Auschwitz. In her short life, she became a poet, farmer, and paratrooper. Book: Hannah Szenesh, Her Life and Diary, Translated Marta Cohn (Jewish LightsPublishing, 2007). Music: "Eli Eli" [My God, My God] performed by Ofra Haza "Zog nit kaynmol" performed by Chava Albertstein

A teenaged spice-shop owner and professional scribe, Shmuel Hanagid wrote such scintillating and literary love letters that a client hired him for bigger and better things. His work was lost for nearly 1,000 years and rediscovered only in the 1930s. Book: The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 Music: Zahava Seewald and Zohara Abulafia - I would lay down my life

The Founder of Hebrew Spanish Poetry, Dunash ben Labrat, also made your ulpan studies possible. He was the first to distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs in Hebrew, and to catalog verbs by the 3-letter roots. His smart, talented wife produced the only Hebrew language poem we have by an Andalusian woman. Book: The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492. Music: "Dror Yikra” [“He Will Proclaim Freedom”]--performed by Maimon Cohen "Dror Yikra" performed by DiVahn

Lea Goldberg is the best-selling poet in the history of Israel. Many of her poems express both a love of the land of Israel, as well as nostalgia for her abandoned home in the diaspora. Do you know which university department she founded and chaired? And which Russian classics she translated into Hebrew? Book: "With this Night," translated by Annie Kantar. (University of Texas Press, 2011). Music: Achinoam Nini (Noa) - Ilanot (Pines) Shlomo Yidov - White Days

Moshe Ben Ezra was a fine Andalusian poet, as well as the chief of the Granada police. Listen to a couple of poems from the guy who made complaining a form of art.   Book: The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492. Music: "Let Man Remember," composed and performed by Avi Belleli   "Castille," composed and performed by Avi Belleli

Hayyim Nahman Bialik was one of the pioneers of Hebrew poetry.  Hear the National Poet of Israel sung by Arik Einstein, who created the"Soundtrack of Israel." Find out about the fascinating Bialik house, and his songs and activities for children.   Music: Nad-Ned [See-saw], performed by Shula Chen Take me Under your Wing, performed by Arik Einstein   Take Me Under Your Wing Take me under your wing,be my mother, my sister.Take my head to your breast,my banished prayers to your nest. One merciful twilight hour,hear my pain, bend your head.They say there is youth in the world.Where has my youth fled? Listen! another secret:I have been seared by a flame.They say there is love in the world.How do we know love’s name? I was deceived by the stars.There was a dream; it passed.I have nothing at all in the world,nothing but a vast waste. Take me under your wing,be my mother, my sister.Take my head to your breast,my banished prayers to your nest. 

The mother of Hebrew Poetry, and one of the first women poet's in theHebrew language since the Biblical Deborah. She switched from paining artand playing music to painting with the soil and playing with the hoe. Book: Flowers of Perhaps. A Bilingual edition of selected poems translatedby Robert Friend. Toby Press, 2008.Music: "And Maybe," performed by Arik Einstein"Sing, you must," performed by Idan Raichal and Din Din Aviv "To MyCountry," performed by Netanela,

It's great to be living in a city whose streets are named for so many poets and writers, but who are these people and what exactly did they write?  In this segment we'll learn about the main north-south street of Tel Aviv, Ibn Gavirol, and the brilliant Golden-Age poet described as "the spectacular fly in the ointment of the refined eleventh century Andalusian-Jewish elite." Book: "The Dream of the Poem. Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492. Translated by Peter Cole.  Princeton University Press. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8349.html Song: Sha'ar Petach Dodi, written by Ibn Gavirol, performed by Berry Sakharof