Translation or interpretation?

Lea Goldberg named it in “Jerusalem, Earthly and Heavenly” (1970, p. 51): Break your bread in two, / Jerusalem, earthly and heavenly, / thorn jewels on your slopes / and your sun among the thistles. / … / Break your bread in two: / one part for the birds of the sky / the other / for heavy feet to trample on / at the crossroads. In “Jerusalem” (1960, P. 21), Shlomo Zamir wrote, Around the mulberries the crows are cackling / “re mi fa sol la!” / The Street of the Heretics wrestles / with the Street of the Believers. Gabriel Preil (“A Small Comment From Jerusalem”, 1992, p. 113) wrote: Every street-word is tossed out with a king’s weight. Oreet Meital opened “Third Generation” with a defiant inversion of God’s command to Abraham at Mount Moriah: I took my sons, my only ones, whom I loved, and I sent them away from here, / away from the storm raging all around / away from the orders, the rifles’ muzzles, the foreskins, the burnt offerings, / … (2022, p. 203). Yehuda Amichai’s iconic “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Why Jerusalem” (1998, pp. 129-133) dwells on this encounter with, and retreat from the holiness, violence, elation, and mundane that weave together in Jerusalem:

1. There are days when everyone says, I was there / I can testify to it, I stood a small distance from the accident, / from the bomb, from the crucifixion, I was almost hurt, almost crucified, / I saw the bride and groom’s faces at their chuppah, I was almost joyous, / I peeked at David bedding Bat Sheva, by chance / I was on the roof, fixing pipes, taking down a flag, / with my own eyes I saw the oil miracle at the Temple, / I saw General Allenby entering through the Jaffa Gate, / I saw God. / And then there are days when everyone has an alibi: I wasn’t there, I heard / nothing, only an explosion from afar and I ran, I saw smoke, but / I was reading a paper. I was somewhere else. / I didn’t see God. I have witnesses. / And the god of Jerusalem is a god of eternal alibi, / He wasn’t there he didn’t see didn’t hear / He was in another place. He was an other. Was a place.

Every translation is an interpretation, because each language echoes with distinct meanings and associations. Back’s translations manage simultaneously to be poetic in English and to stick close to the poets’ original words. Her English was very rarely awkward, even more rarely left out an essential facet of the Hebrew’s meaning. She inverted syntax so the English could flow more naturally while maintaining the original line structure. She let the reader know when she had to make a choice among concurrent meanings, such as once when she translated a phrase’s direct meaning instead of paralleling its meaning as an expression. (In the original poem, the expression and direct meaning are equally valuable.) Helpful structures within the anthology deepen readers’ appreciation of each poem. The linear presentation of poems and translations on facing pages allows for a quick finger search for linguistic subtleties. The Notes section offers deeper understanding: exposition of translation choices; biblical, historical and literary references; and when it helps, poems’ original publication contexts.

Depth and color

While reading poems grouped around one theme can grow tedious, this anthology never did. The poems Back selected cohered without repeating. Common ideas and images added depth and color, like layered brushstrokes in a masterpiece. I read hungrily through her introduction (worthy of literary publication on its own), poems, notes, and biographies. And there’s a surprise in store for those who “stay through the credits.” Like movies that add an extra scene before the screen goes dark, Back delights the persistent reader with a poem of her own, an unindexed epilogue reaching back through the book to offer one final breath of meaning.

Rhonda Rosenheck, M.Ed., is a poet, writer, and retired Jewish educator living in New York’s

Capital Region. She may be reached by e-mail at rrosenheck@gmail.com.