Israel In Translation

It’s July—school and university are out for the summer; it’s hot. This month is often a strange mix of the ecstatic and the supremely boring. It’s a month that does not usually receive much praise or fanfare. It’s the perfect month to focus on poetry—that intensifier that makes the joy more joyful and the pain more painful, and the days just a little more delightfully strange and ripe. Kicking off this month of poems will be Haya Esther, a woman born into an ultra orthodox household in Jerusalem, and who was fired from her job in a girl’s Haredi school after her first book of poems was published in 1983. She went on to write 18 volumes of poetry. Text: Three poems Haya Esther, translated by Linda Zisquit and Shira Twersky-Cassel Poetry International Rotterdam 

Ayat Abou Shmeiss is an Arab-speaker who writes in Hebrew in part because she was educated in that language, and in French, at a Christian school in Jaffa, and has been writing since she was a teen. In her second book, her subjects include an examination of her life as the mother of one child, and as a student at the Open University, where she is now finishing a degree in political science. The poet has a clear grasp of her position. “I’m this and that” she said. Text: “My Identity Has Nothing to do with the Language in which I Write.” Tel Aviv Review of Books Poems: Poetry International Rotterdam

We continue what we began in last week's episode, discussing the historian Flavius Josephus, focusing on his biography, “The Life.” In terms of his future career and authorship, Flavius Josephus could not have arrived in this world at a better time or place. In the year 37—four years after Jesus was crucified—Josephus was born in Jerusalem as Yosef bar Mattathyahu in Aramaic or ben mattathias in Hebrew, the son of a priestly family on both sides. His mother could trace her ancestry to the royal Hasmoneans, the Maccabean family dynasts who had led the struggle for Jewish independence prior to the Roman conquest. Text: This edition of Josephus’s works was translated from the Greek original by William Whiston (1667-1752).

To mark the completion of the Shavuot holiday, this week Marcela reads from Josephus’s account of the giving of the Torah, in his volume “Jewish Antiquities.” Text: This edition of Josephus’s works was translated from the Greek original by William Whiston (1667-1752).

Arab Israeli women are one of the most underrepresented groups of writers in Israel and the world. It’s very difficult to find such work that's been translated into English. And so today, we spotlight the poetry of three such women. I’m using Nathalie Handal’s anthology “The Poetry of Arab Women.” Text: “The Path of Affection” by Laila Allush, translated by Abdelwahab M Elmessiri. “I Love in White Ink” by Siham Da’oud, translated by Helen Knox and Smadar Lavie. “Interlaced Lines for the Same Moment” by Ghada el-Shafa’I, translated by Atef Abu-Seif with Nathalie Handal.

The fast of Ramadan ends next week. Here in Israel, lights are strung up all over the cities of Jerusalem, Haifa, Akko, Jaffa, and many smaller towns and villages. Festive lanterns with beautiful designs in a variety of colors throw their light around. It is a season of heightened charity and prayer as well. To mark the Eid Al Fitr holiday, we read poems by Sumaiya El-Sousy. Sumaiya El-Sousy was born in Gaza City and works in a research center in Gaza. She’s published multiple collections of poetry. Text: “Voices” by Sumaiya El-Sousy, translated by Atef Abu-Seif, with Nathalie Handal, in The Poetry of Arab Women. A Contemporary Anthology. Ed. Nathalie Handal. Interlink Books, 2001. “The City” by Sumaiya El-Sousy, in “The Angel of History and the Ghetto of Gaza by Leonard Schwartz in Counterpunch, June 15, 2009. Music: Le Trio Joubran – Majâz; Masar

Today we excerpt from the short story “The Plague” by Nurit Zarchi, translated by Yael Lotan, and found in the anthology Fifty Stories from Israel. The story is set during the time of the 14th century great plague in Jerusalem, which killed a quarter of the city’s population. In this story, the monks who lived on the mountain, at a distance of an hour and a half outside of the city, would take turns, by drawing lots, to go into the city to help. The monk who was then sent to the city would return at night to sleep in an isolated hut in the monastery garden, so as not to infect his brethren. When he woke in the morning, he would ring a bell so that all would know that he was alive and ready to depart for the city. If the bell failed to ring, the monks would know that they would have to choose a new delegate. The climax of this story occurs when Aaron, the foundling child, has drawn the lot to go into Jerusalem. Nurit Zarchi, who often writes for children, set one of the conflicts in this story to be between pr

Today we read an excerpt from Aharon Appelfeld’s novel, The Age of Wonders, published in Israel in 1978 and translated by Dalya Bilu in 1981. A holocaust survivor himself, this novel is remarkable in that it skips over the war, and does not even use the word holocaust, as it chronicles the dissolution of an assimilated Austrian family, in a petit-bourgeois Jewish world, and the anti-semitism leading up to the war. Told in two parts, the first part ends with a scene in the town’s synagogue, where all the Jews have been requested to assemble. The last sentence of the section is “By the next day we were on the cattle train hurtling south.” Book Two opens with the line, “Many years later, when everything was over.” In the interim, the narrator has somehow escaped to Palestine. Previous Episodes on Aharon Appelfeld: Ticho Café interview The Story of a Life Text: Aharon Appelfeld. The Age of Wonders. Translated by Dalya Bilu. Boston: David R. Godine, 1981

Yesterday and today we commemorate Yom Hazikaron —Memorial Day— in Israel. In 1948 the poet Haim Gouri fought as a deputy company commander in the Palmach Negev Brigade and wrote a poem commemorating the fighters who accompanied the convoys and fell at Bab el Wad. We read from it on today's episode. Text: Haim Gouri, “Bab El Wad,” translated by Vivian Eden Music: “Bab El Wad,” Haim Gouri, sung by Shoshana Damari, music by Shmuel Fershko “Bab El Wad,” Haim Gouri, sung by Yafa Yarkoni

Before she died in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Anne Frank said: “Despite everything, I believe that people are, at heart, really good.” In honor of Holocaust Memorial Day, host Marcela Sulak takes a fresh look at the young diarist whose words inspired the world. Texts: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition. By Anne Frank. Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler. Translated by Susan Massotty. Bantam Books. Music: The Whole Story Soundtrack: Epilogue. Composed by Graeme Revell and Orchestrated by Tim Simonec.

This week we continue exploring Robert Alter’s translation of the Bible and sacred poetry by looking at The Song of Songs, which is traditionally read on the Shabbat of the intermediate days of Passover before the morning Torah reading, or on the morning of the seventh day. Robert Alter’s historic one-man translation of the entire Hebrew Bible is like two worlds at once, the heavens and the earth, with the translation above and the commentary below. One can spend a lifetime in either of these worlds. Text: Robert Alter, Strong As Death Is Love: The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Jonah, and Daniel. A Translation with Commentary. W. W. Norton & Company. 2015

This week and next, during Passover, we’ll be exploring Robert Alter's translation of the beginning of Exodus, the basis for the Passover story. Next week we’ll approach the Song of Songs, which is traditionally recited during the days of Passover. Robert Alter’s historic one-man translation of the entire Hebrew Bible is like two worlds at once, the heavens and the earth, with the translation above and the commentary below. One can spend a lifetime in either of these worlds. Text: Robert Alter’s Bible: A Symposium By Ronald Hendel, Aviya Kushner, Shai Held, David Bentley Hart, Adele Berlin, Adam Kirsch. Jewish Review of Books, 2019. Winter 2019 Alter, Robert. The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary. W. W. Norton & Company.

Bracha Serri was born in 1942 in San’a, Yemen, and brought to Israel in a mass exodus of Jews from Yemen soon after the State was established. She often adopts the first person voice of a Yemenite woman, crushed between an oppressive patriarchal background and the discriminatory nature of her everyday life, as in the poem “Dish.” Serri studied linguistics and Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In addition to her writing, Sari established her own publishing house, the Or HaGanuz publishing house. Her books are known for their innovative design. Her own poetry is intertextual, not only for its Biblical references, but for its dialogue with Yeminite culture, feminism, politics, as well as religion. Text: Bracha Serri, “Aliza Says,” translated by Rachel Zvia Back. The Defiant Muse. Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity to the Present. Ed. Shirly Kaufman, et al. New York: The Feminist Press, 1999. Bracha Serri, “No More Important Men,” translated by Yaffah Berkovits Murciano, Nashim: A Journal

Born in Umm Al-Fahm, Ayman Agbaria is a researcher, poet, playwright, social activist, and a senior lecturer in the department of leadership and policy in education at the University of Haifa. Several of Agbaria's poems, written in Arabic, have been translated into Hebrew, and have been well received. Among the themes found in his poetry are the extreme alienation from the self that of living as a religious and linguistic minority in Israel can produce. Text: Ayman Agbaria, various poems at Poetry International Rotterdam

Today we commemorate the life of Ella Bat Tsion, who passed away a month ago. We begin the episode with the poem, “I waited with Endless Patience,” translated by Lisa Katz. It comes from her last book, After, which was published in 2000. Text: Ella Bat Tsion, “I waited with Endless Patience.” Translated by Lisa Katz. After published in 2000.

On this Purim, we turn to Robert Alter’s excellent new translation, Strong as Death Is Love: The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Jonah, and Daniel. Robert Alter writes that the Book of Esther, unlike any other book of the Bible, seems to have been written primarily for entertainment. Alter notes: “It has variously been described as a farce, a burlesque, a satire, a fairy tale, and a carnivalesque narrative, and it is often quite funny, with sly sexual comedy playing a significant role. The portrait of King Ahasuerus and the Persian court makes no pretense of serious correspondence to historical reality, as the original audience surely must have known. The Persian emperors were famous for their tolerance toward ethnic minorities—a policy clearly enunciated in the Cyrus Cylinder—and so Ahasuerus’s accepting Haman’s plan to massacre all the Jews of the realm is a manifest fantasy.” Text: Strong As Death Is Love: The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Jonah, and Daniel, A Translation with Commentary. W. W. Norton & Co

This week we feature an excerpt from Shani Boianjiu’s novel, “The People of Forever Are Not Afraid,” published in 2012 in English. The novel is told in a series of vignettes narrated by three young Israeli women – Lea, Avishag and Yael – following their high school years in a small northern village, through their enlistment in the Israeli Defence Force where they train marksmen, guard a border and man a checkpoint. The novel follows them into their twenties. Text: Shani Boianjiu, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, Hogarth; First Edition (September 11, 2012)

In this week’s episode, we will consider Israeli Love poetry through the lens of Barbara Goldberg’s new book, Transformation: The Poetry of Translation, which has just come out this year, after winning the Valentin Krustev Award for Translation. Goldberg calls her volume “a small anthology of Israeli poets writing on love and war.” Among the 62 poets represented, nearly all are alive and currently writing today. She says of them, that they “are men and women, old and young, natives of Israel and foreign born, secular and religious, straight and gay; each, in his or her individual way, represents Israel and reflects the diversity of its faces.” Text: Barbara Goldberg, Transformation: The Poetry of Translation. Poet’s Choice, 2019.

This week’s episode introduces a genre called “Auto-reality,” a term coined by Rana Werbin to describe her first book, Life Is Good. This book is a collection of excerpts from the author’s real-life journal, which she disassembled and reorganized to create a narrative of her choice. Rana Werbin is an Israeli writer, editor, actor, and translator. The book is translated by Yardenne Greenspan and Maya Klein. Text: Rana Werbin, Life is Good. Translated by Yardenne Greenspan and Maya Klein. Amazon Digital Services LLC, 2012.

Aharon Appelfeld passed away just over a year ago. He was one of Israel’s most well known authors abroad, and one of the generation that came of age around the same time as the founding of the State of Israel. Appelfeld would say that in order to be a serious writer you need to have a routine. For years his routine had been to write with a Biro pen on sheets of ordinary white paper in the café at Ticho House, in Jerusalem. It was there that Alain Elkann interviewed him for The Paris Review in 2014. Text: Aharon Appelfeld. “The Art of Fiction” Interviewed by Alain Elkann. The Paris Review ISSUE 210, FALL 2014