English

Hamutal Bar-Yosef was born in 1940 on Kibbutz Tel-Yosef. Her parents had come to Israel
from Ukraine in 1936; most of their families perished in the Holocaust, and in July 1948 their
only son was killed in the War of Independence. Before 1948 the family lived in Beit Zer’a,
.Kfar Warburg and Ein Vered. Since 1976 Bar-Yosef has lived in Jerusalem

Bar-Yosef worked as a teacher of literature in high schools and as a curriculum planner in the
Ministry of Education. From 1987-2004 she was a professor in the Department of Hebrew
Literature of Ben-Gurion University, where she founded a master’s degree program in creative
writing program in 1993. In 2003 she became professor emerita. She has also taught Hebrew
literature in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and in universities in Kiev, Moscow, New York,
Stockholm, Poznan, and in the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Herzog College in Alon Shvut,
.and in the army preparatory school of Ein Porat

She has published 12 scholarly books and dozens of articles in Hebrew and other languages. Her
books are: Metaphor and Simile in the Works of A.N. Gnessin (1987); The Poetry of Zelda (1988,
2006); “Notes” as a Genre in Hebrew Literature (1989); Decadent Trends in Hebrew
Literature: Bialik, Berdychevsky, Brenner (1997); Decadence in European Literature Literature
(1999); Symbolism in Modern Poetry (2000) Mysticism in Hebrew Poetry of the Twentieth
Century (2007, English translation 2010), Leah Goldberg: A Monograph (2012), The Russian
Context of Hebrew Literature (2020), and also handbooks for students and teachers of literature.
Her book on Bialik and the Russian literature of his time appeared in Russian translation in 2013.
Her small book Jewish-Christian Relations in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature appeared
.in English (2000)

She has published a large number of book reviews (collected in the book Tastes of Reading
2006) and essays on culture, Judaism and ethics (collected in the book Readings and Whistlings,
.2005)

She has published 17 collections of poetry, If in a Hurry (self-published, 1971), Take Air
(Masada 1978), Only the Green (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 1981), Jumping Jacks (HaKibbutz
HaMeuchad, 1984); Crowded (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 1981); The No (Carmel, 1998); Night,
Morning: Poems and Translations, with woodcuts by Chana Pizer (Carmel 2000); Food
Recovery (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 2004); New and Selected Poems (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 2010);
Engraved in Stone, Cut in Wood: 15 Epitaphs, with woodcuts by Chana Pizer Ben-David; Portrait exhibition (Even
Hoshen, 2013), Whistling (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 2013), Excess (2015), Without Many Words

(2018), The Miraculous Mistake (2020), The Hard and the Ripe (2023). She edited a collect
of poems about love in old age, The Old Man Loves! (2022). Her poems have appeared in many
literary supplements and magazines and have been included in many anthologies.

She has received many literary prizes: the Tel Aviv Prize (1977); the Lamdan Prize of the
Hebrew Writers Union (1981); the AKUM Prize (1987); the Tel Aviv Prize (1987); the
Jerusalem Prize for Poetry (1990); the WIZO Prize for the Creative Woman (1999); the President
of Israel Prize; the 2005 Brenner Prize (2005); the Amichai Prize (2010); the Ramat Gan Prize
(2012); the ASI Prize for Short Stories (2012); the Rabinovich Award for Translation of Poems
into French and Arabic (2012); the 2013 AKUM Prize for Life Project (2013); the Rabinovich
Award for the Translation of “Music” into English (2013); the Goldberg Prize for The
.Wealthy (2018) and the Zelda Prize for Poetry (2024)

In the field of fiction she has published some 10 stories for adults and children in newspapers
and magazines; a children’s book (In the Summer This Will Pass, Keter 1984). 18 stories are
collected in the book Music (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad and Safra, 2012), which was translated into
English by Aloma Halter as The Wall Etc. (2019), and into French by Esther Yifrach as Le Mur
(2019). An autobiographical book in the form of an interview with Moshe Ganan, What Is There
to Explain? (Safra 2016). Her historical novel, The Wealthy, was published in 2018 and received
many responses in Israel and abroad; including an evening at the President’s house; it was
translated into English by Esther Cameron and published by Gefen in 2021. In 2022 two
novellas were published under the title I Found Him on the Internet, and the book has also
.appeared in English and Russian translation

She has published Hebrew translations of poetry, fiction and philosophy from Russian, French
English, and Yiddish. From Russian: Olga Sedakova, Old Songs (Carmel, 1998); Julia Viner
Four Long poems: On Money, On Old Age, On Death, Etc. (Carmel 2003); Vladimir Solovyov,
The Meaning of Love (Carmel 2003); The complete works of Isaac Babel (3 vols, 2011), A
Bottle in the Sea (Poems by Zinaida Pavlovna, 2021), To Live with a Genius: Diaries of of
Sophia Tolstoy (Carmel 2018); The Last Page of My Life—The Correspondence of Chekhov with
Olga Kniper (forthcoming). From English: Kadia Molodovsky, by Zelda Cohen-Neuman
(2022). From French: Symbolist poetry (in the poetry collection “Night Morning”) and Herod
by Miriam Hadas-Leibel (2022). From Yiddish: Bending Above Myself, poems by Malka
.Chefetz-Tuzman (2013)

Translations of her poems have appeared in book form

:In English

Night, Morning, translated by Rachel Zvia Back, (Sheep Meadow Press, 2008)
(The Ladder, translated by Esther Cameron,(Sheep Meadow Press, 2014
The Miraculous Mistake, (Sheep Meadow, in press)

:In Arabic

When I am Left Alone, translated by Naim Araidi, (Cairo 2010)
The Painful Place, a trilingual (Hebrew-French-Arabic)  (Caracterès, Paris  2013)
Time, translated by Mufid Sidawi, (Ar'ara 2025)

. Additional books of her poems appeared in Hungarian, Rumanian and Georgian

Translations into German, Ukrainian, Italian, Swedish, Rumanian, Armenian and Yiddish
.have appeared in anthologies and magazines

Poems by Bar-Yosef have been set to music by Eran El-Bar, Albert Sofer, Hagar Raveh and Ifat Netz,
,Yael Tai, Alon Shav Shoshia Beeri-Dotan, Uri Revach, No’a Shemer, Adam Hafter, Oded Zehavi,
Rotem Sherman, Neta Aloni, Shani Mayo, Netanel Zalevsky, and Aviel Rubashov, and have been
performed by Yaela Avital with the Atar trio, Yael Tai and accompanies, Uri Revach, Revital Ganot,
.Ayelet Kolet, and others

.In 2022 she founded the organization Quiet Jerusalem

email: baryosefl@bgu.ac.il

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Night, Morning  (Poems) : A Bilingual Edition

The Sheep Meadow Press, New York 2007

Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back.

Introduction by David Shapiro

Announcement

For the full text of the book press here

Reviews:

Margot Lurie, “Mourning Glory: The vibrant, anguished poetry of Hamutal Bar-Yosef”, Nextbook: A New Read of Jewish Culture, 6.10.08.

Sandra Brawarsky, "Poetry as Purification", The Jewish Week, 10.10.2008, pp. 42-43.

Sandy Brawarsky, “Unexpected Gift books”, Jewish Woman (Winter 2008), p. 35.

Michael Cook, "Night, Morning", Jewish book World: Poetry Reviews, Spring 2009.

דורית זילברמן, "משוררת עברית בניו יורק", ידיעות אמריקה 12.18.2008, עמ' 15-14.

poems in "Guernica"

The Ladder , Sheep Meadow Press 2014

Translated by Esther Cameron

click here for additional details cc

"Bubble Gum" a poem in rhino

+ audeo English and Hebrew

announcement Jerusalem Bienale Oct 29 2015

Mysticism in xx Century Hebrew Poetry ( 2010 )

 For the full text of the book press here

Articles and essays:

Bereivement in Israel