After the First Rain: Israeli Poems on War and Peace [Hardcover]

Moshe Dor (Editor), Barbara Goldberg (Editor), Shimon Peres (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1998

Sixty-five Israeli poets write of their despair over war and their fierce craving for peace. One reviewer wrote "the tragedy of war and hopes for peace, the alef and tav of Israeli life, shine through this moving collection." Among the 35 translators of poems in this collection, all with Moshe Dor: Barbara Goldberg, Jane Hirshfield, Shirley Kaufman, the late William Matthews, Steven Mitchell, Linda Pastan,  Myra Sklarew and Henry Taylor.

Editorial Reviews

Review

It Will Be A Monotonous Poem by Eli Alon
Palestinian by Eli Alon
Arriving At The Island by Alon Altaras
The Houses That Were Mine by Alon Altaras
Seven Laments For The War-dead: 1 by Yehuda Amichai
Seven Laments For The War-dead: 2 by Yehuda Amichai
Seven Laments For The War-dead: 3 by Yehuda Amichai
Seven Laments For The War-dead: 4 by Yehuda Amichai
Seven Laments For The War-dead: 5 by Yehuda Amichai
Seven Laments For The War-dead: 6 by Yehuda Amichai
Seven Laments For The War-dead: 7 by Yehuda Amichai
Wildpeace by Yehuda Amichai
The Dead Soldier's Betrothed by Shulamit Apfel
Each War Took Me by Shulamit Apfel
Looking Towards Jerusalem by Na'im Araidi
She Was In Jerusalem by Na'im Araidi
Drought: 1. Autumn 1983 by Dan Armon
Drought: 2. Winter 1984 by Dan Armon
Eucalyptus by Dan Armon
Army Reserve Service At Ma'aleh Ya'ir by Shlomo Avayou
You Have To Abandon Jerusalem by Shlomo Avayou
If Olny People Could See Us by Peretz-dror Banai
Taste Of Salt And Reckoning by Peretz-dror Banai
Negotiation by Chamutal Bar-yosef
An Old Poem And Twelve Thoughts About A Dove by Chamutal Bar-yosef
Peace by Ella Bat-tzion
Cedar Trees Hotel, Metula by Maya Bejerano
Data Processing 34 by Maya Bejerano
The War And The Dog Who Committed Suicide by Yigal Ben-aryeh
The Light Poem Of Mud And Culture by Moshe Ben-shaul
Soldier by Moshe Ben-shaul
Furlough by Reuven Ben-yosef
Ruins by Yaakov Besser
Snakeskin by Yaakov Besser
Military Funeral At High Noon: 1 by T. Carmi
Military Funeral At High Noon: 2 by T. Carmi
Military Funeral At High Noon: 3 by T. Carmi
Military Funeral At High Noon: 4 by T. Carmi
Military Funeral At High Noon: 5 by T. Carmi
Order Of The Day by T. Carmi
Tel Aviv Beach, Winter '74 by Raquel Chalfi
Legging Behing by Rami Ditzani
On Reflection by Rami Ditzani
The Hot Season by Moshe Dor
Responsibility by Moshe Dor
Here, Far Away by Anadad Eldan
Spread Your Tabernacle by Anadad Eldan
I'm Inside by Yisrael Eliraz
The Wars Passed Here by Yisrael Eliraz
The Rain Is Ready To Fall by Eytan Eytan
The Wind Grinds by Eytan Eytan
Cafe by Mordechai Geldman
Mohammed by Mordechai Geldman
He'll Take You With Him by Amir Gilboa
My Brother Was Silent by Amir Gilboa
The Palm Doves: 1 by Zerubavel Gilead
The Palm Doves: 2 by Zerubavel Gilead
Prayer For Peace by Zerubavel Gilead
And Today Is A Holiday by Varda Ginossar
Apple Of Pain by Varda Ginossar
His Mother by Hayim Gouri
Piyyut For Rosh Hashana by Hayim Gouri
Between Wars by Tanya Hadar
Fears: 1 by Ra'aya Harnik
Fears: 2 by Ra'aya Harnik
Fears: 3 by Ra'aya Harnik
I'm Narrowing My Boundaries by Ra'aya Harnik
The Man Going To War by Yehiel Hazak
Three Decades Already by Yehiel Hazak
Around The Water By The Birds by Yair Hurwitz
Behind Front Lines by Yehudit Kaffri
Sometime by Yehudit Kaffri
Ibrahim by Nitza Kann
And How My Brother Is Cain by Azriel Kaufman
I Live In Her by Azriel Kaufman
April The Twentieth, 1948 by Dahlia Kaveh
Snow Binds Jerusalem Together by Dahlia Kaveh
Mirage Of Sand: Gates Of The City by Abba Kovner
Voices From The Hill by Abba Kovner
Love Of The Country by Yitzhak Laor
Memory Of Three Dead by Yitzhak Laor
Between Hermon And The Salt Sea by Giora Leshem
Born Between Alerts by Giora Leshem
Corporal Rabinovitch's Corpse by Assia Margulis
The Mother by Assia Margulis
Vintage '49 by Mira Meir
Summer Resort, July '85: 1 by Sabina Messeg
Summer Resort, July '85: 2 by Sabina Messeg
Summer Resort, July '85: 3 by Sabina Messeg
Summer Resort, July '85: 4 by Sabina Messeg
Each Rose by Zelda Mishkovsky
Truce by Zelda Mishkovsky
Peace Poem After A Ugaritic Incription by Eli Netzer
The Fig Tree by Miriam Oren
A Man Walks In The Land by Miriam Oren
The Shot by Dan Pagis
Twenty Years In The Valley by Dan Pagis
Chronicle: 1 by Israel Pincas
Chronicle: 2 by Israel Pincas
Chronicle: 3 by Israel Pincas
Yitzhak And Amalya by Israel Pincas
Migrating Birds by Elisha Porat
Three Colors by Elisha Porat
Requests by Esther Raab
Soldier by Esther Raab
Blood Heifer by Dahlia Ravikovitch
Hovering At A Low Altitude by Dahlia Ravikovitch
Each Year by Asher Reich
Our Blood Is The Petrol Of The World by Asher Reich
And The Mother's Face In The Scales by Tuvia Ruebner
Summer by Tuvia Ruebner
The Angel by Pinchas Sadeh
Autumn 1982 by Ilan Schoenfeld
That Autumn by Ilan Schoenfeld
Only The War by Tzippi Shahrur
A Soldier Wept On The Radio by Tzippi Shahrur
Merciful People by Shin Shifra
On The Dying Young Man: 1 by Shin Shifra
On The Dying Young Man: 2 by Shin Shifra
On The Dying Young Man: 3 by Shin Shifra
The Lame Veteran by Arye Sivan
To Live In The Land Of Israel by Arye Sivan
From This Distance The Tombstones Look Like A Flight Of Storks by Ronny Somek
Pallor In The Face by Ronny Somek
Rains by Shlomo Tan'ee
A Tale Of Peaceful Days by Shlomo Tan'ee
Definitions by Avner Treinin
Enclosed Seas by Avner Treinin
* by Yona Wallach
Good Eye by Yona Wallach
Bird's-eye View by Rafi Weichert
The Siren's Wail by Rafi Weichert
71 A.d. by Meir Wieseltier
I've No Words by Meir Wieseltier
Blackout by Ittamar Yaoz-kest
Every Day On The Radio by Ittamar Yaoz-kest
Another Song Of Absalom by Nathan Yonathan
Autumnal Thoughts by Nathan Yonathan
Song Of The Disabled Ex-servicemen by Shlomo Zamir
Song Of The Savages by Shlomo Zamir
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press; 1st Syracuse University Press ed edition (February 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815605242
• ISBN-13: 978-0815605249
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,212,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Middle Eastern > Hebrew

More About the Author

Barbara Goldberg, raised in Forest Hills, New York, graudated from Mount Holyoke College in philosophy. She is the author of four prize-winning books, most recently, The Royal Baker's Daughter, winner of the 2008 Felix Pollak Poetry Prize, selected by David St. John. Other books include Marvelous Pursuits, Cautionary Tales and Berta Broadfoot and Pepin the Short: A Merovinian Romance. Along with the Israeli poet Moshe Dor, she edited and translated After the First Rain: Israeli Poems on War and Peace, with a foreword by Shimon Peres; and Witter Bynner Award-winning The Stones Remember: Native Israeli Poetry. In addition, with Dor, she translated The Fire Stays in Red: Poems of Ronny Someck. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, the Gettysburg Review and the Paris Review. Awards include two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, the Armand G. Erpf Award from Columbia University's Translation Center as well as national awards in fiction, feature writing and speechwriting. A former seniot speechwriter at AARPV, she is currently a visiting writer in American University's MFA program. She lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Collection of sixty- six Israeli poets on 'War' and 'Peace', May 4, 2008

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: After the First Rain: Israeli Poems on War and Peace (Hardcover)

This volume was put together by Moshe Dor and Barbara Goldberg. It contains the work of sixty- six Israeli poets. It is a wide- ranging selection and has work by some of the most well- known Israeli poets, Zelda, Yehuda Amichai, T.Carmi, Amir Gilboa, Dan Pagis, Abba Kovner, Esther Raab, Pinchas Sadeh, Aryeh Sivan, Yona Wallach,Dalia Rabikovitch,Natan Yonatan, and others. It does not however have poems by other 'greats' of the tradition mainly from a previous generation. No Bialik, no Rachel, no Uri Tzvi Greenberg, no Shlonsky, no Alterman. It also does not have, and this is something which truly made the work far less valuable to me than it would be otherwise, the Hebrew original. In other words the work would have been from my point- of- view a far more interesting one had I been able to read the Hebrew original along with the translation.
The Poem contains much about loss, suffering, death. One notable element is that there is in many of the poems a sympathy with the other side. The poems are not propaganda poems, not poems of demonization, not poems which exalt the glory of war. They are very humane and caring with a great deal of sympathy for the victims on both sides. In this they reflect a certain truth of the way Israelis see the world.
One more point. The editors did not choose to anthologize the best known poem of either Zelda or Yehuda Amichai.
Goldberg herself translates many of the poems. Other translators are William Mathews,Karen Alkalay - Gut, Cicely Angleton, Chana Block Ariel Bloch, Moshe Dor, Ann Darr, Marcia Falk, Laura Fargas, Richard Flantz,
Roland Flint, Bernhard Frank, Hillel Halkin, Jane Hirshfield, A.C.Jacobs,
Rod Jellema , Shirley Kaufman, Merril Leffler,Gabriel Levin, Elaine Magarrell, Seymour Mayne, Ruth Finer Mintz, Stephen Mitchell, Jean Nordhaus, Linda Pastan,Riva Rubin, Catherine Harnett Shaw, Grace Schulman, Maurya Simon, Myra Sklarew, Henry Taylor, Ruth Whitman, Reed Whittemore, Linda Zisquit.