This Longing City

This anthology includes seventy-seven poems of modern Hebrew poetry, from the 1930s to 2023, spanning approximately ninety years. Forty-one poets are represented, some with a single poem and some with more. Of the forty-one poets, all but one are Jewish, with Hebrew as their primary language of composition; the exception is the Arab poet Salman Masalha, who writes in both Arabic and Hebrew. Vigorous efforts were made to represent women's voices and Sephardic voices in the collection. Many of the poets included here live (or lived) their entire lives in Jerusalem (i.e., Zelda, Amichai, Mossel-Eiezerov, Rivka Miriam, Meiri), while many others come (or came) to Jerusalem as visitors (i.e., Raab, Ruebner, Kovner, Ravikovitch, Chalfi, Biton). Some of the poets ended up in Jerusalem at a significant juncture in their lives, and stayed (Goldberg, Gouri, Pinhas-Cohen, Behar).

In choosing which Jerusalem poems to include, Rachel Back has sought to represent the great range of relationships with and perspectives on the city the different poets have. The poems are arranged in sections of chronological ordering, with their year of publication attached; as Jerusalem lives also in specific historical moments, so too must her poems. As a religious and political epicenter charged with the continuing, ever worsening, conflicts of our modern day, Jerusalem is unavoidable. She has always been unavoidable. Mythic and real, she pulls the poet toward her and insists on yet one more imagining, one more poetic crafting.