Israel in Translation

Adi Keissar, an Israeli poet of Yemenite descent, is the founder of the popular Ars Poetica, a project which initiated a new wave of Mizrahi poetry for the masses in the form of readings combined with Middle Eastern music and dancing. Keissar...

Today we focus on the work of a particular translator—Peter Cole. We've often featured Cole’s translations, but almost always his work from antiquity, particularly from The Dream of the Poem, and also his Arabic language translations of Taha...

Asenath Barzani, from the Iraqi Kurdistan region, was the first known woman rabbi in Jewish history. Born in 1590, she was the daughter of the eminent Rabbi Shmuel b. Netanel Ha-Levi of Kurdistan. Her father, a scholar and mystic with a large...

On the shores of Israel's Sea of Galilee lies the city of Tiberias, and in Shemi Zarhin’s novel Some Day, it is a place bursting with sexuality and longing for love. Zarhin's hypnotic writing renders a painfully delicious vision of individual lives...

People are people. But sometimes it is difficult to maintain one’s humanity under dehumanizing conditions. On today’s episode, we share the work of one poet in Gaza whose poems and fragments open a tiny window into the Gaza strip, where only 5% of...

“When a writer is motivated by empathy rather than sarcasm, his humor has the power to reach deep into the heart,” Omri Herzog noted in his 2012 Haaretz review of Yirmi Pinkus' second novel, Petty Business, which is a tale of two families, related...

This episode features poems by Sheikha Helawy, a Bedouin-Israeli woman living in Jaffa, originally written in Arabic and in Hebrew and translated by Yosefa Raz. Helawy was born in the unmarked Bedouin village of El-Roi, on the outskirts of the city of...

Moshe Sakal’s novel, The Diamond Setter, is part mystery, part family history, and part myth. The plot centers around a lost blue diamond known as Sabakh that is brought into the local diamond cutter’s shop. The story is told mainly from the point...

This past Saturday night, we celebrated the holiday of Shavuot. And in honor of the festival, we read from Emuna Elon’s novel, If You Awaken Love, translated by David Hazony, and published by Toby Press in 2006. Music: Kululam - Chai Rav Shlomo...

In honor of the holy month of Ramadan observed by Muslims worldwide, host Marcela Sulak reads an essay by Iman Jmal, a graduate student at Bar-Ilan University. Jmal is from Jatt in northern Israel and she writes about preparing a Ramadan meal with her...