Welcome to Voices Israel
Who We Are:
Voices Israel is the natural home for Israeli poets writing in English, and for those abroad who support our goals and share our enthusiasm for poetry. From our initial launch by four founders in 1971, we have grown to a membership of around 150 poets in Israel and several other countries. We are a fully-accredited and approved organization registered since 1993 with the Israel Organizations Authority.
For Fuller Information:
- see our About Voices page;
- Come visit our Facebook page!
- download our flyer and email it to others who would like to hear about us.
- We also have a short flyer for notice boards. If there’s a place where English speakers gather – why not print it out and pin it up there?
Come join us!
We’re always happy to welcome both new and established (yes and would-be) poets into our family!
- To attend a local meeting to try us out – contact your local Coordinator. You’re welcome to ask to attend, as a guest, any of our local meetings, via Zoom or in-person, for two or three meetings prior to deciding whether to join.
- To become a member of Voices Israel – fill in our membership application form and send it in! Full details are on our Membership page. Our modest annual membership dues cover our costs and entitle you to a free copy of the Anthology and reduced fees for workshops.
Some of our local groups hold face-to-face meetings, while others meet via Zoom. For members with no convenient local group, we also have two Global Groups which include members from both Israel and abroad: see the Our Team page for contact details of their coordinators.
Chapbooks currently available can be ordered via PayPal: click the link below, it will ask you to log in to your PayPal account and then to fill in the amount to send Voices Israel with a note saying what the payment is for. Please also send an email to whoever is distributing them (our chapbook producer, Judy Koren: koren.judy@gmail.com).
The link: PayPal.me/VoicesIsrael.
What we’ve been doing of late
Below is the list of our activities for the last few months. To see the full list of what we’ve been doing, check out our Voices Israel’s Activities page
October to December 2026
Our next Zoom workshop, “The Value of Repetition in Poetry,” led by Susan Olsburgh, is scheduled for Monday November 23 at 7:30 pm. Registration details will be sent soon.
We’re starting a Zoom Poetry Reading group, to be coordinated (with many thanks) by Deborah Golden. It will meet once every two months, on the first Sunday of the month. Each meeting will be presented by one of the participants and will read and discuss poems by a favourite poet of theirs. The initial meeting, on November 1st, will be on the UK poet Gillian Clarke, presented by Judy Koren. To join the group, contact Deborah Golden.
In light of rising costs, particularly for overseas postage, we will have to increase the membership fees for 2027. Members will have an opportunity to discuss the proposed increase at an EGM on Zoom on Wednesday 28th October at 7:30pm (Israel time). The EGM will be followed by a reading of Poems from the recent Workshop “My Heart Speaks” inspired by Psalms – further details will follow soon.
Our 2026 Anthology will be officially launched in-person (from 6pm to 9 pm Israel time) plus on Zoom (starting at 7:15 pm) on Wednesday 14th Oct, at the Chalet restaurant in Kiryat Motzkin near Haifa – a 2-minute walk from the train station. If you haven’t already registered, please do so using this link: https://forms.gle/BYwhbAUgoCwuJ2Qi7. Overseas members: all times are Israel times, please adjust for your own time zone!
We’re investigating how to publish our anthologies via Amazon. Any member who has experience self-publishing via Amazon, please contact our President, Julian Alper.
July to September 2026
Due to great demand and over-subscription to our two Global Groups, we have added a third — Global Group 3, which meets on the first Thursday of each month on Zoom. This is our ninth monthly meetings group.
We held a very well-attended Zoom workshop, “My Heart Speaks,” led by Elana Dorfman and Dina Yehuda, on the poetry of Tehillim (Psalms), on Wednesday September 2nd. As usual we’ll be producing an e-chapbook (PDF) of poems started at it.
Dina Yehuda interviewed Mara Lee Grayson on Zoom on Sunday August 23rd at 7:30pm (Israel time) Their discussion focused on Mara’s life, work and poetry.
Our 2026 Voices Israel Anthology has been published and sent out to all members and contributers.
Our Reuben Rose Competition is now open for submissions. The submission period runs until October 1st. For details see our Submit to the Reuben Rose page.
On Tuesday, 14 July, we held a special Zoom evening to honour our nonagenarian members – Ada Aharoni, Amiel Schotz, Judy Foner, Miriam Webber, Ricky Friesem, and Stanley Barkan.
April to June 2026
We held the joint Reuben Rose Competition and Bar Sagi Prize awards event via Zoom on Thursday, 30 April 2026. Over 50 people attended including family and teachers of the winning Bar Sagi poets. The Zoom recording is up on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/NXeaU3irNns.
On April 15th, Dina Yehuda, our past Chief Editor of the Anthology,interviewed Miriam Botzer of Sfat, via Zoom, on her life and creative journey, focusing on seven of her poems. To see a recording of the live interview, click here. Passcode is: Gp*^2t3B.
The editorial board for the 2026 Anthology has made its decisions and the Anthology is now in preparation. Congratulations to everyone whose poems were accepted!
January to March 2026
Our Early Bird membership renewal period ran until March 31st. And we extended the deadline for submissions to our Voices Israel Anthology till the same date — see the Anthology section of this website.
Our Annual General Meeting proceeded as scheduled despite the war, on March 19th, and was attended by 27 people.
On March 5th, a few days after the war began, we held an impromptu Open Mic session, which was very well attended.
Our Zoom workshop on Light was so well attended that there wasn’t time to hear the poems written at it; so we held a poetry reading for them on January 13th.
The Reuben Rose Prize winners and Honorable Mention recipients have been announced. For details, see our 2025 Reuben Rose Competition page.
Our Bar Sagi Young Poets Prize competition submission period has now closed and the judges are considering the entries.
Our 2026 Anthology is open for submissions, till March 31st.
What our members have been doing
Below is a list of our members’ latest poetic achievements, with links to their publications where available. To see the full list for the past six months, check out our Members’ Activities page.
September 2026: congratulations to:
Esther Cameron and Mindy Aber Barad, who have just published the latest edition of The Deronda Review: https://www.derondareview.org/vol11no2.pdf
Hayim Abramson, Julian Alper, Miriam Alper, Hannah Amit, Miriam Jaskierowicz Arman, Mindy Aber Barad, Esther Cameron, Judy Koren, Alyssa A. Lappen, Rumi Morkin and Pesach Rotem who have had poems published in the latest edition of The Deronda Review.
Julian Alper, Ann Bar-Dov, Elana Dorfman, Judy Koren, Fran Levin, Mark L. Levinson, and Pesach Rotem, who have all had poems published in the online anthology Sheltering in Place (Babka Press: ed. Haya Pomrenze): http://Babkapress.com/sheltering-in-place.
Bruce Black, whose poem “A Fingernail Moon” has been published by the online community Kind Over Matter : https://kindovermatter.com/a-fingernail-moon/.
Isaac Cohen for his many successes during the month.
Bob Findysz, whose poem “A Balkan Magic Carpet Journey” has been published in the Joy Issue: Fall 2026 of Flowers of the Field online literary journal: https://flowers-of-the-field.com/fall-2026%3A-joy.
Yiskah Rosenfeld, whose poem “Permission” has been published in the Fall issue of the online Quartet Journal: Fall Issue 2026 | Quartet Journal, and whose poem “String Quartet # 2 in D Major” has been published in Unbound Ink: https://unboundink.org/issue1-string-quartet-2-in-d-major/.
August 2026: congratulations to:
Ann Bar-Dov, Elana Dorfmann, Judy Koren and Julian Alper who have had poems selected for inclusion in the forthcoming anthology Shelter in Place, from The Babka Press.
Bruce Black, who has had two poems published online by Ritualwell : “God seems so distant this year” and “Slowly awakening”; a poem published by KIND OVER MATTER ; and a poem “What is home?” published in Ibbetson Street #59.
Isaac Cohen for his many successes during the month.
Mara Lee Grayson whose poem “To the First-Born Daughter on the Fourteenth Floor of the Marlboro Housing Project, 1958” has been published by The Rumpus.
Mark L. Levinson, who has had two poems, “The Traffic Circle” and “The Fat Thread,” published in Charlie’s Fare Literary Journal.
Judy Koren, who has had four poems selected for publication in The Deronda Review.
Christopher Carter Sanderson who has a piece coming out in The Exacting Clam literary magazine in December, and another coming out in the Fall issue of the UK’s Spellbinder Magazine.
July 2026: congratulations to:
Miriam Alper and Julian Alper, who have had poems accepted for publication in The Deronda Review.
Miriam Jaskierowicz Arman, who has been appointed Official Representative & Ambassador for Peace ‘The International Association for Arts and Culture for Peace’ (IAACP) under ‘Universal Peace Federation (UPF), Israel’.
Bruce Black, who has had four poems published in the New England Review: “Star dust” – and more.
Esther Cameron, whose essay Between Revolution and Repentance and poem Censorship have both been published in the New England Review.
Isaac Cohen for his many successes throughout the month.
Walter Gonzalez, (writing as W. E. Ticas) whose poems “The Boy called Silence” and “Aida, Whom the Dust Could Not Bury” have both been published in the New England Review.
Mara Lee Grayson, who received this year’s Honeybee Poetry Prize from The Good Life Review for her poem “How to Be a Jewish Woman in Amerikkka while Your Friends Sleep Fitfully in War Zones”. You can read Mara’s poem and hear her read it here .
Judy Koren, who has had four poems accepted for publication in The Deronda Review.
Christopher Carter Sanderson, who has been selected as quarterfinalist in the Outstanding Screenplays Shorts Competition 2026 for his work “Werner Herzog, A Comedy.”
