Once again we held a hybrid event, with fifteen active Israeli members at the Stage Karaoke Bar in Netanya, plus 25 who joined us via Zoom, both from Israel and abroad. Almost all of us (35 out of the 40 members and other contributors present) read a poem from the anthology.
We especially welcomed Avigail Wiseglass who read the poem by her mother, Ruth Fogelman z”l, who sadly passed away earlier this year.
With our President, Julian Alper, presiding, we welcomed our new Chief Editor, Judy Koren, who has taken over from Dina Yehuda; and 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 in a lovely anthology for which we have received many congratulations. Thanks also to our member Malka Kelter, whose beautiful painting of an ancient olive tree was selected for the anthology cover picture, for allowing us to use it.
This year just over 300 poems were submitted, of which 133, from 119 poets, were chosen for the anthology — about a third more poems than last year. The quality of the poems submitted was, we felt, really good — congratulations to all our members and the many non-members worldwide who submitted!
The recorded video of the Zoom session is up on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/Sl5zhhVzno8.
Below are a few photos of the celebration at the Stage Karaoke Bar, and some screenshots of 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.
This is what the in-person event looked like:
And here are a few shots of the Zoomers:
Beth Morris, Fran Levin and Judy Robinson, reading;
Mark L. Levinson, Julian Alper, Malka Kelter and Yocheved Zemel, listening:
Voices Israel Group of Poets in English 