israel in translation

Free admission to Rosh Hashanah

Navit Barel writes: “We ate apples dipped in honey. Free admission / to the sweet and happy years…”

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Ode to a golden summer vacation

“Once, when summer vacation stretched over the whole summer and tasted of sand and smelled of grapes and a redhead sun daubed freckles on your face…”

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Yona Wallach’s Hebrew “peeks through the keyhole”

Yona Wallach had an astonishing impact on Hebrew literature during her short life, ushering in a feminist revolution in Israeli poetry.

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Rutu Modan’s Graphic Touch

“The Property” is about an Israeli grandmother and her granddaughter getting to know Warsaw as they try to reclaim a family property lost during WWII.

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Icarus learns to fly

“Seconds before bursting into flames the boy sent out a cry / that his father, hanging farther down in perfect balance / could not make out…”

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Death of a Soviet space dog

“Did she bark? I have to know if she barked. And how the echo sounded in that narrow space. If it sounded like distant dogs answering her.”

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Painting within writing

“It was preferable to restrict encounters with adherents of another faith and to be content, at least for the greater part of the way, to travel by sea.”

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A. B. Yehoshua’s green seas and yellow continents

“It was preferable to restrict encounters with adherents of another faith and to be content, at least for the greater part of the way, to travel by sea.”

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Nurit Zarchi’s Baby Blues

“Babies drop into the world, / like rain falling in the dark / from a gigantic hand into shafts, / into a spider’s tent, a cold apple.”

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