Next week, from Sunday night until Wednesday at sunset, we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. 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 the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah.

Today we feature poems translated by Aya Abu Riash, Yavni Bar-Yam, and Hiba Jiryis, who are all translation seminar students at Bar-Ilan University. After studying and discussing various translation theories, poetic traditions, and styles, each student chose a poet and translated their work.

This short story is by Sheikha Helawy, a Bedouin woman living in Jaffa. The story consists of a letter from the “Letters to the Editor” section of the newspaper. The writer, who goes by “R.A.”, is searching for his eyes. How did he lose them? Will anyone be able to help?

David Avidan worked as a self-described “poet, painter, filmmaker, publicist, and playwright.” He was often attacked by poetry critics who criticized him as being egocentric, chauvinistic, and technocratic. In an interview, Avidan 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.”

“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.” That’s the poetry of Roy Hasan.

Natan Zach has had a great influence on the development of modern Hebrew poetry. He favors a ‘poetics of modesty’, simple poetics without undue simplification. Zach has been called “the most articulate and insistent spokesman of the modernist movement in Hebrew poetry.”