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 many 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?
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 fill in the amount to send Voices Israel and a note saying what the payment is for. Please also send an email to whoever is distributing them (currently, our President Judy Koren: president@voicesisrael.com).
The link: PayPal.me/VoicesIsrael.
Come Join Us!
We're always happy to welcome new and established (yes and would-be) poets into our family!
- To attend a local meeting to try us out - contact your local Coordinator.
- To become a member of Voices Israel - fill in our membership application form and send it in - full details are in the form.
What We've Been Doing (activities over the past year)
We're planning another Zoom mini-workshop for February 7th, 2022: "Seeing is Believing," another in a series on Harnessing the Senses for Creative Inspiration, given by Elana Dorfman. The full announcement is in the January 2022 Newsletter. Elana is also our workshop coordinator so please register with Elana at elanado@gmail.com.
The submission period for the 2022 Voices Israel Anthology has opened, and runs till April 15th. Come on in and submit your three best poems for publication!
On December 13th Judy Koren as President of Voices Israel, and Dina Yehuda as Chief Editor of the Anthology gave, by invitation, a much-appreciated workshop on writing poetry to the ESL-teacher students at Givat Washington College. The presentation covered: Voices Israel and the Reuben Rose and Bar Sagi prizes, the process of writing poetry and what inspires us, the reading and critiquing of some poems, and a writing exercise in which the students eagerly participated. These students will be teaching middle and high-school English in a year or at most two, so we're glad to have the opportunity for publicity!
The Reuben Rose competition submission period has now closed. The judges are busy judging the over-300 poems submitted. Results are expected in February 2022.
The submission period for the Voices Israel Anthology opens on January 15th and will run until April 15th. If your poems didn't find their way to a prize or Honourable Mention in the Reuben Rose, you can turn around and submit them (maximum 3) to the Anthology!
The submission period for the Bar Sagi Young Poets Prize is still open (till January 15, 2022). Please everybody do remind all your family, friends and others who may be interested, and direct them to the information on the Bar Sagi Prize page of this website. This year we’re reverting to the original format of the competition – it is open to Israeli students only.
We held the launch event for the Voices Israel 2021 Anthology on October 3rd, via Zoom, which enabled several of our overseas members to attend. We celebrated the hard work and achievements of everyone connected with producing this beautiful volume, and thirty poets read their poems from it. For full details see the 2021 Voices Israel Anthology Launch page of this website.
As usual, we recorded the event, and the video (around an hour and a half) is up on our YouTube channel. To see the video on YouTube click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJTvvBy9iTg
We've published the chapbooks from the two workshops held in June - both of them look lovely and are full of poems - almost every participant sent in a polished version of a poem drafted at each of the three sessions of each workshop, resulting in chapbooks of over 50 pages. We've sent out copies to everyone who ordered one: if you'd like one or both, contact our President, Judy Koren, at president@voicesisrael.com.
The 2021 Voices Israel Anthology has been published and was sent out to all our members in late August. You can order extra copies and non-members can order copies via the Buying the Anthology page of this website. Many thanks to our new designer and producer, Avril Meallem, who has done a marvellous job!
On July 11th we held a gala Zoom event to mark the 50th anniversary of Voices Israel. 44 members registered, mostly from Israel but also from the UK, USA and Canada, and many wrote in afterwards to tell us how much they enjoyed it. Several of our long-term members shared with us their reminiscences and poems of the early days, and the evening ended with an Open Mike. We recorded the meeting and sent the link to all members. A chapbook from the event has been sent out to all members together with the Voices Israel Anthology.
On June 7th we held our first post-Covid face to face activity with a one-day workshop in Netanya. 20 participants enjoyed three presentations and writing exercises in the lovely home of our past President, Susan Olsburgh; sixteen of them contributed poems for the chapbook of the workshop which was designed by our creative designer Johnmichael Simon and finally produced by Judy Koren. For details and photos see the workshop page on this website.
And on June 23rd we followed up with another one-day workshop in Haifa, graciously hosted by our member Edit Gavriely. Sixteen participants enjoyed three presentations and exercises in the relaxed atmosphere of Edit's spacious home and garden. Again, for details see the workshop page. The chapbook from this workshop was produced by Judy Koren. Both chapbooks are available for a nominal price.
The joint Bar Sagi Young Poets Prize and Reuben Rose Competition awards event was held on Sunday May 2nd at 7:30 pm Israel time (that's 5:30 pm UK time, 12:30 noon US East Coast time and 9:30 am US Pacific time). You can read the full announcement of the event here (pdf file). We have 66 people registered to attend. If there's time, it will be followed by an Open Mic at which around a dozen of our members will read a poem each.
Our Haifa Group presented, by invitation, a special program of its members' poetry: "Hearing our Voice –the Pleasure of Poetry" at the April meeting of the Oren (Haifa) branch of Hadassah Women on April 13th. Eight members of the group read three poems each.
Our 2021 Annual General Meeting took place on Monday April 5th via Zoom. It was followed by a very enjoyable Open Mic poetry reading at which 15 of our members read a poem each. More details are in the official announcement here (pdf file).
Our Zoom workshop, "Harnessing the senses for creative inspiration," presented by Voices Israel member Elana Dorfman, took place on Monday March 8th at 7:30 pm Israel time (5:30 pm UK time, 12:30 noon US East Coast time). Once again it was fully attended and enthusiastically received. Full details and some screenshots of the event are on our Zoom Workshop, March 2021 page.
We've announced the winners of the 2020 Reuben Rose competition:
- First prize: “David’s Shield,” by Ricky Rapoport Friesem (Israel)
- Second prize: “Lantern Fish,” by Jane Seitel (USA)
- Third prize: “The Burden of Memory,” by Esther B. Lipton (UK)
What our Members Have Been Doing over the past year
December 2021: Congratulations to:
Pesach Rotem, whose poem “Even in America” was published in Constellations, http://www.constellations-lit.com.
Helen Bar-Lev, whose poem was chosen as a finalist in Oprelle’s “2021 Matter” Anthology Poetry Contest.
Reuven Goldfarb, whose poem “Are the California Fires Out Yet?", appears in the December 1, 2021, issue of the Jewish Post & Opinion.
Paul Rabinowitz, who has been chosen to be the featured reader at Calling All Poets at The Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory. February 4, 2022, 7-9 PM at 8 N Cherry St., Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.
Miriam Green, whose poem “Testing for Covid” was a featured poem in Poetica Magazine.
Isaac Cohen, who has had two of his poems published in the October-December International Writers’ Journal; has received a congratulations certificate from the Literature World Group Ernest Hemingway for his poem “My love of nature”; and has received a certificate from Premio Internazionale D’Eccellenza “Citta del Galateo” for his poem “You’re Too Young to Die.”
Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, who was interviewed on World Poetry Café, 100.6 FM on December 16, 2021, when she read from and talked about her soon-to-be released book, Immortal Seeds: Bearing Gold from the Abyss, co-published by Cross-Cultural Communications and The Seventh Quarry Press.
November 2021: Congratulations to:
Judy Koren, whose pantoum “Hypnosis” has been accepted by the Society of Classical Poets for publication on the homepage of their website www.classicalpoets.org, from November 7th.
Paul Rabinowitz whose three poems “Spin Cycle,” “Rose,” and “Softcover” appear in the October 2021 Montreal Review, and whose poem
"The Wish" has been published in in The Metaworker Literary Journal.
Helen Bar-Lev, whose poem “Where the Song Began” was published in the International Writers’ Journal No. 3, July-September, 2021.
David Ades whose poem, “The Mensch” was published in the 2021 Edition of Poetica Magazine.
October 2021: Congratulations to:
Judy Belsky, on the publication of her book of poems “Where Is The Thread?” Judy also created an art booklet called The Canvas#1, containing some of her magnificent paintings together with her eloquent and moving story of what each painting means to her. Judy has some prints and originals available for purchase. Contact her to receive a copy.
Larry Lefkowitz, whose haiku “framed in a window” was also selected as a Second Prize Winner in The Book Mehuggenah’s Chai-ku Contest at the above address.
Paul Rabinowitz, who has been nominated for the Maria Mazziotti Gillan Literary Service Award. In addition, Paul’s poetry manuscript Truth, Love and the Lines in Between is being submitted for publication.
Pesach Rotem, whose poem “Stars and Bars Triumphant” was published in the Summer 2021 issue of Rise Up Review at https://riseupreview.org/pesach-rotem, and whose haiku “Emunah” was selected as a Second Prize Winner in The Book Mehuggenah’s Chai-ku Contest (https://thebookmeshuggenahs.com/chai-ku).
August-September 2021: Congratulations to:
Helen Bar-Lev, whose poem “Happy Passover” appears in SNAKESKIN, September 2021. See, http://www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk
Judy Koren, whose two ovillejos "Clouds" and "Planetary Storm" were published in the ezine of formal poetry Grand Little Things:
see https://grand-little-things.com/2021/08/28/two-poems-by-judy-koren
Larry Lefkowitz, whose e-book of 20 Sherlock Holmes stories, The Revisionist Sherlock Holmes, is available from Barnes & Noble.
Paul Rabinowitz whose “Speeding Ticket” was published in the Grey Sparrow Journal, and whose “Shirtless” and “Indigo” appeared in The Oddville Press, all in August.
July 2021: Congratulations to:
Donna Bechar, whose poems, “Aubrey’s Voice,” and “Stain,” have been published in June in Glacial Hills Review, from Choeofpleirn Press, Kansas, USA; available on Amazon.
Helen Bar-Lev, whose poem “From the Window of the Pergola” was published in the International Writers’ Journal, No. 2/2021 (April-June); and whose poem “Ageless” was long-listed for the Fish Publishing 2021 Poetry Prize.
Stanley Barkan, Helen Bar-Lev, and Sylvia Kofler whose poems have been published in the Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti Memorial Issue of Syndic, No. 39.
Judy Koren, whose poem, “A Camel or a Rock” has been accepted for the September issue of the light-verse online magazine Lighten Up Online; and whose villanelle “I Never Meant…” has been accepted for the August issue of the literary magazine Better Than Starbucks.
June 2021: another busy month for our members! Congratulations to:
Helen Bar-Lev, whose poem, Ah, Moses, has been published in Poetica Magazine at https://www.poeticamagazine.com/helen-bar-lev; and who has had two poems, Mourning Irises and A May Storm, published in the International Writers Journal, https://iwj-magazine.com/iwj/2021/01. In addition, – Helen’s poem, Suggestions to the Young Poet (which appeared in Voices’ March newsletter) was broadcast to youth groups on the WORLD POETRY CAFÉ RADIO SHOW on CFRO 100.5 FM, Vancouver, Canada.
Ricky Friesem, who is launching her new Hebrew collection, MIklat, published by Beit Eked in Israel, on June 21st at 7 pm, in the garden of her home at the Weizmann Institute. Ricky is inviting any Voices Israel member to attend: contact her at friesem.friesem@weizmann.ac.il to be added to the mailing list for invitations.
Reuven Goldfarb,
whose poem, “Cheering Gino Cimoli,” was a finalist in the Early Weaver Baseball
Writing Prize competition, sponsored by The Cobalt Review, and appears
there on-line. See www.cobaltreview.com.
Judy Koren whose
poem "Tel Shikmona" is being published in the June issue of The
Orchards Poetry Journal, and whose poem "Persimmon" has been accepted for the October
issue of the biennial print-only literary magazine Blue Unicorn.
Pesach Rotem, whose
poem “Bearing Witness” has been published in Topical Poetry at https://topicalpoetry.com/bearing-witness-an-open-letter-to-darnella-frazier.
Richard Shavei-Tzion, director of the Ramatayim Men’s Choir, on their Grand
Finale Concert at the Jerusalem Theatre on 23.6.21, concluding 26 years of
activity, over 250 performances across Israel and Europe, from London to St.
Petersburg. Richard, we hope you will now have more time to write poetry!
All our members who contributed poems to the Deronda Review's special section about the Lag Ba’Omer tragedy onMount Meron: Ruth Fogelman, Mindy Aber Barad Golembo, Hayim Abramson, Esther Cameron, Brenda Appelbaum Golani, Leah Leslie Gottesman, Shoshannah Somerville, Alana Schwartz and Gerson Moskowitz, Esther Fein, and Chananya Weissman. All their poems are online on the Deronda Review's website, here. May they help to ensure that this tragedy will never be forgotten.
May 2021: Our members have been especially busy! Congratulations to:
Judy Koren, whose poem "The X Factor" was accepted by The Road Not Taken, a Journal of Formal Poetry, for their August issue.
Hayim Abramson, Simcha Angel, Mindy Aber Barad, Judy Belsky, Esther Cameron, Ruth Fogelman, Judy Koren, Michael E. Stone, and Miriam Webber (a.k.a. Rumi Morkin) who have all had poems published in the Deronda Review, Vol. 9.1, 2021.
Rosemary Wolfson, who has recently had a poem accepted for the Palewell Press Anthology Can You Hear the People Sing? Global responses to the pandemic.
Mindy Aber Barad, Helen Bar-Lev, Wendy Dickstein, Judith Fineberg, and Larry Lefkowitz, who submitted poems read at the Jerusalism event "HaShoah thru Poetry" and published in Halah, The literary magazine of Jerusalism.
Judith Fineberg, whose poem "Better than Bandaids" was published in an online Dream Doctors newsletter.
Helen Bar-Lev, Judith R. Robinson, and Judy Koren, who each had a poem published in Poetry Super Highway’s 23rd Annual Yom HaShoah issue.
Rena Lopata, who has published a collection of poetry dating from 1979-2019 including photography by her husband, Alex; the Australian Jewish News published Rena’s poem "There is a crack in everything" in their Literary Pages during the High Holy Days.
Willa Schneberg, who presented a poetry reading on April 11, 2021, at the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland, Oregon USA celebrating National Poetry Month in April.
Michael J. Duke, who has been published in the latest edition of Spotlight published by the Circle Foundation for the Arts.
April 2021: Congratulations to:
Paul Rabinowitz, who has some new published works: “The Monastery” in the Spring issue of The Adirondack Review; "Villa dei Misteri" in the Spring issue of The Courtship of Winds; and “The Cat” and "Soundscape" in the Authors and Artists Anthology.
Helen Bar-Lev, whose poem, "St. Patrick’s Day Cranes", and painting, "Cranes at the Agamon HaHula Nature Reserve", have been printed in the Dylan Day Celebration magazine.
Stanley H. Barkan for co-editing the anthology of Bilingual poetry, Bridging the Waters III. And to Stanley, Willa Schneberg, Steven (Shlomo) Sher, Ada Aharoni, Helen Bar Lev, Ruth Fogelman and Channah Moshe whose poems were published in the anthology.
Eli Ben-Joseph, who has published a chapbook, “Shells” (soon to be sold via Amazon) containing 50 of his poems and a few prints of his artwork.
Hannah Moshe, who has had two poems published: “A Green Swan” in the e-version of Amaravati Poetic Prism, International Multilingual Poetry Anthology, India; and “A Picture in Poetry” in The best of 2020, Poets of the World.
Judy Koren, who has had three acceptances: "Baking a Unicorn" for publication in this year's Deronda Review; "German Vacation" for publication in the 23rd Yom Hashoah issue of Poetry Super Highway; and "The Plane Truth" for publication in the upcoming (June) issue of Lighten Up Online, an online quarterly magazine of light verse.
Miriam Webber, who has had two poems accepted for the next issue of The Deronda Review.
John Gallas, our 2018 Reuben Rose first-prize winner and a judge for the 2019 competition, whose book of love poems, The Extasie, will be published by Carcanet Press on April 29th. Carcanet is offering a preorder discount (code GALLAS25 –case sensitive!) until the publication date.
February - March 2021: Congratulations to:
Deborah Golden, whose poem "Gathered In" was published in an online book entitled In Silence We Wait (edited by Richard M. Grove, 2021) as part of the ongoing Poetry Pandemic Project.
Judy Koren, whose terzanelle "A Night of Rain" has been published in the Formal Poetry section of the literary magazine Better Than Starbucks, Vol. VI no. 1 (February 2021).
Helen Bar-Lev, who is retiring from her post as Overseas Connections Coordinator, but we are keeping her on-call for poems and lovely artwork!! Enjoy, Helen.
January 2021: Congratulations to:
Diane Ray, whose poem “Capitol Offense” has been published on the website of Indolent Books, in their section Transition: Poems in the Afterglow o1 | 07 | 2021.
Wendy
Blumfield, whose review of A. B.
Yehoshua's new novel, The Tunnel, has been
published in The Jerusalem Report.
John Gallas, our 2018 Reuben Rose first-prize winner and a judge for the 2019 competition, whose new book, The Gnawing Flood, has been published by Cerasus Poetry. “Winner of the Bronze Medal Award in the 2020 Cerasus Poetry Olympics."
December 2020: congratulations to:
Ellen Jaffe (USA), whose 2006 young-adult novel, Feast of Lights (for readers 10-14 or so) has been published as a Kindle e-book, (the paper edition is out of print).