Chana Bloch, poet, translator, and teacher, died on May 19, 2017. Among her major translation projects are the Song of Songs with Ariel Bloch (then husband) and, with Chana Kronfeld, Yehuda Amichai's Open Closed Open (NY: Harcourt, 2000). For several years, she edited Persimmon Tree, a publication of the arts by women over 60. Bloch's … Continue reading Chana Bloch: Her Memory For a Poetic Blessing
Amichai’s Love and the Entwives
A highway detours in order to give two lovers some privacy in their "bit of eternity," in the opening stanza of Yehuda Amichai's "Pinecones in the Tree Above." Several stanzas later, "she is the walled public garden of the city, and he, the road which moves away from her" (Abramson, p.101 -- see notes below). … Continue reading Amichai’s Love and the Entwives
Malcolm X and The Power of Small Things
“The fame we get from fighting for the freedom of others creates a prison for us,” Malcolm X wrote in 1964 to Azizah al-Hibri, then a college student at the American University in Beirut. Their brief in-person connection and subsequent correspondence are still treasured by Dr. al-Hibri, now retired as chair of KARAMAH: Muslim Women … Continue reading Malcolm X and The Power of Small Things
Distance, part 2
The distance between people and God, and if/how that distance may be bridged, is a major question in theology, philosophy, and the arts, including contemporary Hebrew poetry. The previous post looked at related ways that "touch" [Hebrew: נָגַע] occurs both in Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed and in some verses from Yehuda Amichai. The distance … Continue reading Distance, part 2
Roads, Birds, and Distance: Amichai, Goldberg, and the Rambam
"Touch" [Hebrew: נָגַע] is a word-of-the-week, as my study partner and I plow slowly through Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. This common verb, as it happens, is central to a Yehuda Amichai piece Temple Micah's Hebrew Poetry group discussed this past Shabbat. The two explorations of touch shed a little extra light on one another … Continue reading Roads, Birds, and Distance: Amichai, Goldberg, and the Rambam
