You Who Cross My Path

This first U.S. publication of Erez Bitton, one of Israel's most celebrated poets, recalls the fate of Moroccan Jewish culture with poems both evocative and pure. Considered the founding father of Mizrahi Israeli poetry, a major tradition in the history of Hebrew poetry, Bitton's bilingual collection dramatically expands the scope of biographical experience and memory, ultimately resurrecting a vanishing world and culture.

Preliminary Background Words

My mother my mother
from a village of shrubs green of a different green.
From a bird's nest producing milk sweeter than sweet.
From a nightingale's cradle of a thousand Arabian nights.


My mother my mother
who staved off evil
with her middle fingers
with beating her chest
on behalf of all mothers.


My father my father
who delved into worlds
who sanctified the Sabbath with pure Araq
who was most practiced
in synagogue traditions.

And I—
having distanced myself
deep into my heart
would recite
when all were asleep
short Bach masses
deep into my heart
in Jewish-
Moroccan.

The 2015 recipient of the Israel Prize, Erez Bitton was born in 1942 to Moroccan parents in Oran, Algeria, and emigrated to Israel in 1948. Blinded by a stray hand grenade in Lod, he spent his childhood in Jerusalem's School for the Blind. He is considered the founding father of Mizrahi Israeli poetry in Israel—the first poet to take on the conflict between North African immigrants and the Ashkenazi society, and the first to use Judeo-Arabic dialect in his poetry.

Erez Bitton: Born in 1942 to Moroccan parents in Oran, Algeria, Erez Bitton emigrated to Israel in 1948. Blinded by a stray hand grenade he found near his home in Lod, he spent the rest of his childhood in Jerusalem's School for the Blind. He received a B.A. in Social Work from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an M.A. in Psychology from Bar Ilan University. He wrote a weekly column for the Israeli daily Ma'ariv and worked as a social worker and as a psychologist. His first two books, A Moroccan Offering (1976) and The Book of Na'na (1979), established him as the founding father of Mizrahi poetry in Israel—the first poet to take on the conflict between North African immigrants and the Ashkenazi society, and the first to use Judeo-Arabic dialect in his poetry. The author of five poetry collections and a play, he has served as chairman of the Hebrew Writers Association, and is the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Apyrion, which he founded in 1982. Among his awards are the Miriam Talpir Prize (1982), the Prime Minister's Prize (1988), the Yehuda Amichai Prize (2014), as well as the Bialik Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2014). His collection The Book of Na'na was published in French (Editions Saint Germain, 1981). Bitton lives in Tel Aviv, Israel, with his wife Rahel Calahorra, and is father to a son and a daughter.

Tsipi Keller was born in Prague, raised in Israel, and has been living in the U.S. since 1974. The author of nine books, she is the recipient of several literary awards, including National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowships, New York Foundation for the Arts fiction grants, and an Armand G. Erpf award from Columbia University. Her most recent translation collections are Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry (SUNY Press), and The Hymns of Job & Other Poems, a Lannan Translation Selection (BOA Editions). In addition to Erez Bitton's You Who Cross My Path (BOA Editions), her selected volume of Raquel Chalfi's poems, Reality Crumbs, will be published in 2015 (SUNY Press).

Eli Hirsch is a poet, editor, and literary critic. Born in Petach Tikva in 1962, he published his first poems in 1979, and holds a graduate degree in Philosophy from Tel Aviv University. He is the author of four volumes of poetry, and his most recent collection is Hanging Gardens of Tel Aviv (Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2012). He has published numerous book reviews and essays, and, since 2007, writes a weekly column on poetry in the Literary Supplement of the daily Yediot Ahronot. He was Editor in Chief at Modan Publishing, and is currently (since 2003) the Literary Editor at Hargol Publishing House. Hirsch teaches Creative Writing in the Literature Department at Tel Aviv University.