I call you now to answer me
despite my prayer’s silence in the mornings
despite the moth’s presence in my closet
despite my fullness with rusted talk

These are lines from Haviva Pedaya’s poem “When I Come From the Place of Crying,” translated by Harvey Bock, which host Marcela Sulak reads.

Pedaya was born into an Iraqi family of rabbis and Kabbalists. She is a professor of Jewish history at Ben Gurion University specializing in mysticism, and her poetry echoes her scholarly research on time and place; center and periphery; and messianism.

Pedaya is also involved in musical and artistic projects; she founded the Yonah Ensemble which has succeeded in revitalizing liturgical and mystical music of the Near East. Many of her poems have been put to music, and we hear some in the podcast.

The text can be found at Poetry International Rotterdam

Music:

Shai Tsabari – The King

Yuval Gershtein and Maureen Nehedar – There’s A Very Small Place

Producer: Laragh Widdess
Technical producer: Alex Benish