On October 14th, 2026, we held our Anthology launch (as usual, a hybrid in-person plus Zoom event) at the Chalet restaurant in Kiryat Motzkin. 17 people came to the in-person event, slightly more than the 15 who came to the previous year’s launch in Netanya. In addition, 22 people attended by Zoom. In all, 31 of us read one of our poems from the Anthology. All the in-person attendees were delighted with the choice of venue, which was easy to get to, being right by a main-line train station, and with a better ambience (and food!) than the Karaoke Bar.
We were especially happy to welcome our U.K. member Esther Lipton and her husband, who happened to be visiting Israel at the time.
Our President, Julian Alper, and our Chief Editor, Judy Koren, thanked the other three members of the editorial board: Deborah Golden, Avril Meallem and Elana Wolff, for all their hard work and good judgement which has resulted once again in a lovely anthology for which we have received many congratulations. Thanks also to our member Isaac Cohen, for allowing us to use his lovely photograph of the view through a star-shaped window, its outlines composed of a Magen David and a square, from Yemin Moshe towards the Hinnom Valley and Mount of Olives, which won the competition for the anthology cover picture.
This year 296 poems were submitted, of which 128, from 81 poets, were chosen for the anthology — very slightly fewer than last year. The quality of the poems submitted was, again, really good — congratulations to all our members and the many non-members worldwide who submitted!
We don’t have a recording of the initial speeches, but the Zoom video of the poetry-reading section session is up on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/93EW0wrPi5Q.
Below are a few photos of the Chaleh restaurant (regretfully, again, not our specific event) and some shots from the Zoom session, to give an idea of the “vibe” of the event.
For more information about the annual Anthology and how to submit poems, see our Voices Israel Anthology section.
The restaurant and the type of room where we held our launch event:
And here are a few shots of the Zoomers:
Eli Ben-Joseph and Isaac Cohen reading their poems
Noah Chitayat and Mark Elber reading their poems
Brenda Brett and her poem, with some of the Zoomers
