israeli politics

Frankel Institute Event Series: Stranger Still: Translating Contemporary Poetry from Israel/Palestine

Sabine Huynh and Karen Alkalay-Gut

In this installment of the “Stranger Still” series, we invite the poets and translators Sabine Huynh (French, English, Hebrew) and Karen Alkalay-Gut (English, Hebrew, Yiddish) to join us in a conversation about their experiences as multilingual poets in Israel and the role of translation in their work. They will read selections of their poems and translations, including their recent collaboration: Huynh’s French translation Alkalay-Gut’s collection of Holocaust poetry, Surviving Her Story/Survivre à son histoire.

Karen Alkalay-Gut was born in London on the last night of the V-1 flying bomb attacks and grew up in Rochester, New York, completing a PhD in 1975 at the University of Rochester. Since 1972 she has lived in Israel, raising a family, and is retired from teaching poetry at Tel Aviv University. She was the founding chair of the Israel Association of Writers in English, a position she held until 2014 and resumed in 2018. She was Vice Chair of the former Federation of Writers Unions in Israel and is currently a board member of the Yiddish Writers Association. She has written poetry for the cabaret ensemble Panic Ensemble, as well as wide-ranging essays and scholarly articles. Her poetry publications include the recent collections A Word in Edgewise (English), Derakhim le-ehov (Ways to Love, Hebrew), and Yerusha (Inheritance, Yiddish/Hebrew).

Sabine Huynh is a poet, translator and editor based in Tel Aviv. She holds a PhD in Linguistics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is the author of a dozen books (poetry, novel, short stories, essay, diary), and numerous translations (from the French, Hebrew and English). Her poetry collections include Kvar lo, which won France’s 2017 CoPo Poetry Prize, and Dans le tournant/Into the Turning, a bilingual English-French book co-authored with Amy Hollowell. Her first novel, La Mer et l’enfant, was shortlisted for the 2014 Emmanuel-Roblès Prize and for the 2013 Chambery’s First Novel Festival Prize. With Haggai Linik, she is the founding editor of the French-Hebrew literary translation magazine Peham. Her latest poetry collection Parler peau (« to speak skin ») was illustrated by Philippe Agostini and published last year by Æncrages & Co. Her French translation of the complete poetry of Anne Sexton is due out in 2021 with the feminist publishing house Editions des Femmes.
Huynh Photo Credit: Miriam Alster


Zoom Registration Link: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/1216070911601/WN_IsQh-wJARNmcGBeqKf60Qg
Sabine Huynh and Karen Alkalay-Gut
Sabine Huynh and Karen Alkalay-Gut

event – february 16, 2021 Read Post »

blog, my life in tel aviv, poetry

 Since i haven’t put up any events in a year and haven’t even looked at my event page since I set up this site,  I should start sharing the next week with you.

Let’s see, tomorrow at the SELI conference  I’ve got 5 minutes to explain about the poetry boom on zoom.

then on the 13th we’re probably having a Valentines’ zoom with every one reading love poems – more info coming as soon as we can get ourselves to get along…

then on the 14th at five in the afternoon  there’s a birthday party for Rivka Bassman in Yiddish

then on the 16th Sabine Hunyh and I are doing an afternoon on the book “Survivre son histoire/Surviving her story” for an event at Oxford University and the University of Michigan.  You can register here 

january 31, 2021 – what’s coming up Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

Paranoia is the new normal – at least for me.  When we see others on the street, we cross over to the other side.  We fear our children, and now even more than before because even though we’re on lockdown its only in theory – After all, children have to play with each other, shops have to open – even only through the back door, hairdressers seem to be going around to people’s homes.  All this makes life more difficult for those of us who remain vulnerable.

There is also a crazy mental isolation among the population.  In our walk today we met a number of neighbors our age who were without masks and big smiles on their faces.  “Aren’t we lucky?  We’re safe!” they said, as if the while thing is over.  it isn’t.  

january 30, 2021 – corona normal Read Post »

israeli politics

Why should I drive myself crazy over whether the lockdown continues or not?  I’m not going anywhere in any case until Ezi passes his serology somewhere in the second week of February.  And all my voting and campaigning hasn’t ever resulted in getting the government I wanted.  And sometimes I’ve discovered that I voted wrong, or campaigned for the wrong person.  I’m giving up.  Staying home and watching the dumbest series I can find.  

And trying to write wise or funny things.   

All right, I’ll admit it – I suddenly realized that I have been seeing the Labor Party all wrong for 50 years.  My family was devoted to the Labor Party because of its socialism, and the party today seems to follow in this basic theory. But the more I learn about the history of the factories here, the more I understand why there is such bad blood inherited between the haves and have-nots here.  

And I should have seen because I was in the middle of it.   When i came here in 1972 and didn’t get the job I was promised at the University of Tel Aviv, I went to meet a friend of a friend in the Histadrut, the workers’ union.  We met many times at Cafe Olga, where all the officials from Labor party had lunch.  And at last I was offered the position of cultural administrator.  

I was so totally unfit for the job, and maybe that was mutually understood, because I don’t remember ever getting something in writing.  But the fact that I had lunch with all these guys wearing white shirts and blue jackets and no tie means I too had ‘connections’ – probably through my father.   How did I not realize that the job offer was a sign of a corrupted system?  

or maybe the fact that there is no evidence of my job offer means he was just trying to get rid of his obligations by offering me a job I couldn’t take…

 

 

january 29, 2021 Read Post »

israeli politics

after years of trying to figure out what ever happened to the children of my aunt Batya who was either murdered by the Nazis in Lida (according to the Lida Memorial book), or died later in Auschwitz with her husband (according to Yad Vashem records).  My mother had claimed that they had 3-4 children but only one is mentioned as having perished (in the Lida book).  So what happened to the others?  The name Berenzyk or Baranchik could be spelled many different ways, and only one child that I know of would have been old enough to know his family name anyway. 

My brother copied the names of some of my mother’s nephews from the ’30’s when my mother left Lida.  Motl Baranzik was probably the eldest and in his early teens by the time of the Holocaust.  Anyone have any ideas how to progress?

 

january 28, 2021 – looking for cousins Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv,

This is the holiday of the new year of trees, and is usually celebrated by the planting of a sapling.  Since we have planted all our saplings, and can’t see our kids yet to plant with them, what I’ve decided to do is show my appreciation to my favorite tree.  

Both of us need a hug.   This tree has been through a great deal this year. Before the Covid 19 lockdown the entire street was renovated and many changes made – most of them pretty, but stupid.  This poor tree was knocked about by mistake at least 3 times, and lost many of its limbs. I watched in horror while branches were broken off by accident, and no attempt was made to even out the broken edges to prevent disease and allow for further growth.  Nevertheless it has survived, and it is due to blossom soon. 

january 28, 2021 – the new year of trees – tu b’shvat Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv, ,

Even though we have the highest percentage of vaccinated people (close to 3/8ths of the population as of today), we are also suffering a high percentage of deaths from corona, and a lot of younger people infected.   The big problem is the situation of the hospitals, suffering terribly from budgetary problems.  A friend suggested we turn the hospitals into yeshivas and that way the funding problem would be solved.  But seriously folks – this situation can’t go on.  For years we’ve seen the halls of the wards crowded with beds filled with seriously ill patients and the medical staff fighting to accomodate every one.  it couldn’t continue like this, and after almost a year of this I’m sure we’ll have many more deaths just because there aren’t enough nurses to keep an eye on those monitors that can totally change in seconds.

Somehow I was thinking of this today while I sat with a friend in the warm sun and watched the beautiful flowers and vegetables on the window sill.  Tonight there will be a storm and I wonder which plants will suffer, which survive.  It is my job to keep watch and try to protect them.

And to add to this strange combination of thoughts – I watched the Palestinian workers building a luxurious house down the street, and have learned since there are tens of thousands of workers who cross the border daily – not only to build houses, but also to work in hospitals.  They are rarely tested and the vaccinations haven’t yet arrived there.

This train of thought may seem to you to be only the musings of a poet, but I see it as essential to a politician as well…

january 27, 2021 – before a storm Read Post »

israeli politics

Obliteration

 
–It is…virtually impossible to find the full photographic record of any concentration camp.
Sybil Milton (1999)
 
Sometimes all you can see is a document,
Sometimes what you perceive
is only what someone else wants you to see.
The greatest tragedies are offstage.
But sometimes you can peek
into the details, beyond the frame,
around the corner, inside the eyes,
even behind the shutter.
And only then you know
what was really there.

january 26, 2021 – on the eve of holocaust day Read Post »