Our local groups hold regular monthly meetings, face-to-face or via Zoom. For members with no convenient local group, we also have two Global Groups which include members from both Israel and abroad: again, see the Our Team page for contact details of their coordinators.
Nationally, we have a lot going on during the year! Here’s what we’ve been doing over the past year (for our members’ poetry-related activities, see Our Members’ Recent Activities):
April to June 2026
We’ve set the date for the joint Reuben Rose Competition and Bar Sagi Prize awards event. It will be held on Zoom on Thursday, 30 April 2026 at 7:00 pm (Israel time).
On April 15th, Dina Yehuda, our past Chief Editor of the Anthology, will be interviewing Miriam Botzer of Szfat, via Zoom, on her life and creative journey, focusing on five or six of her poems.
The submission period for our Anthology has ended and during April the editorial board will be busy deciding which poems to include.
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 Honourable Mention Recipients have been announced. For details, see our 2025 Reuben Rose Competition page.
Our Bar Sagi Young Poets Prize competition has now closed for submissions and the judges ae considering the entries.
Our 2026 Anthology is open for submissions, till March 31st — see the Anthology section of this website.
October to December 2025
On December 9th we held a very well-attended Zoom workshop on Light, presented by Elana Dorfman.
The submission period for our annual Anthology opened on December 14th. As usual it’s open to anyone, anywhere: submit your three best poems! entry is free. More details are on our Submitting to the Anthology page.
We’ve sent printed copies of the chapbook resulting from our September workshop to everyone who ordered them. Anyone who wants a copy (or an additional copy), please contact Judy Koren, our chapbook producer.
July to September 2025
Our 2025 Anthology launch took place on September 14th as a hybrid event: in-person at the Karaoke Bar, Netanya, and via Zoom. For a description and photos see our 2025 Anthology Launch page.
On September 2nd we held a very successful in-person workshop, “Two American Poets”, in Haifa.
Baruch November, our 2025 Reuben Rose international judge, read poems and was interviewed about his life and poetry, by Susan Olsburgh, in a Voices Israel special Zoom presentation on Sunday August 17th. For more about Baruch November, see our August Newsletter.
The Reuben Rose Competition opened for submissions on July 15th. For details see our Submit to the Reuben Rose page.
April to June 2025
The “12 day war” with Iran forced us to cancel our in-person workshop in Haifa on June 24th, with two presenters on the poets Emma Lazarus and Bob Dylan. We hope to reschedule it soon. Instead we held a mini-Zoom workshop on that date, led by Ann Bar Dov.
We held the awards event for the 35th Reuben Rose competition on April 27th, by Zoom. Thirty-two members from Israel and abroad attended. For full details see our 2024 Reuben Rose Awards Event page.
Our Bar Sagi Young Poets prize had regrettably few entries this year and it was felt that none merited an award. We hope for better results next time.
We’re happy to note that submissions to our Anthology were higher this year than for the past two years. We’ve finished the selection process — congratulations to everyone whose poems were accepted! The Anthology is currently being printed.
We’re considering opening a Poetry Appreciation group — details are in the April Newsletter. If you would like to participate in such a group please contact our President, Julian.
Voices Israel Group of Poets in English 