Vered Lev Kenaan’s Letter from Israel

by Pierre Joris · August 7, 2023

Dear Friends,

I would like to share with you the following news:

Yesterday a special protest event was held in Tel Aviv – the death procession in which thousands of Arab and Jews participated for the first time as they marched together from Ha-Bima (the national theater) square to Tel-Aviv Museum. In the square, 140 coffins were placed in memory of the Arab victims murdered by Arabs (Arab mafia, criminals, violent husbands) from the beginning of this year. We were protesting against the government’s unbearable indifference towards our Arab citizens, against the Israeli police’s loss of control and against the despicable minister of police, the terrorist, Ben Gvir, for the deliberate neglect. The bereaved families marched first with the pictures of the victims and behind them the supporters from the protest movement. Here is a short video from this moving event (credit Bokra net). This sad protest ceremony aroused new hope for a better future for a Jewish-Arab coexistence:

https://twitter.com/actarab/status/1688493002631557120?s=48&t=be_p9g-vCJK1oxblElIXjQ

And here, for those of you who did not read the NYT interview with the beautiful and brave leader, Shikma Bressler, a professor of Physics from Weizmann Institute, a mother of 5 daughters – she should be our next prime minister! In fact many strong and inspirational women from all fields take the lead in this huge and amazing protest movement:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/world/middleeast/shikma-bressler-israel-judicial-protests.html?unlocked_article_code=PPwhJo5oAhXlMrlaoietP7UVwc1pm-w-d2Sy3A0KEmIPNbxNeM4wKzlGLyS__LN6NCs3pYjEWzBNN9UT6oP_w1U6Az7SmbQXzRgcXZUzVLiijE_HjLyu1ST5MDFcRbCGIdlDmQLkcOBkENJkmMY5ksydfiCW-cjm5Ze2AOCSfxosd6TFr8OhQrYIB2FBgLuPGJyuDDjDpq6vxI_t0GXldCeojw38BVTJRfGfjMlr7isdAIP7uCbohow3JrXVgwCZqFqFG0wJw8l7znaCqQB1tIJPaHfAOpXam7eMYUKs362hMBEg5ggNoUFFuFzgKyW1OfFyyHnPl1CfmRERlKzbkljyunUlqzhlt2kllVOXj93KwyP4M0voplMx-io&smid=url-share

With love,

Vered

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Pierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946, was raised in Luxembourg. Since age 18, he has moved between Europe, the Maghreb & the US & holds both Luxembourg & American citizenship. He has published over 80 books of poetry, essays, translations & anthologies — most recently Interglacial Narrows (Poems 1915-2021) & Always the Many, Never the One: Conversations In-between, with Florent Toniello, both from Contra Mundum Press. In 2020 his two final Paul Celan translations came out: Microliths They Are, Little Stones (Posthumous prose, from CMP) & The Collected Earlier Poetry (FSG). Forthcoming are: Paul Celan’s “Todesfuge” (Small Orange Import, 2023) & Diwan of Exiles: A Pierre Joris Reader (edited with Ariel Reznikoff, 2024). For a full list see the right column on this blog.

In 2011 Litteraria Pragensia, Charles University, Prague, published Pierre Joris: Cartographies of the In-between, edited by Peter Cockelbergh, with essays on Joris’ work by, among others, Mohammed Bennis, Charles Bernstein, Nicole Brossard, Clayton Eshleman, Allen Fisher, Christine Hume, Robert Kelly, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Jennifer Moxley, Jean Portante, Carrie Noland, Alice Notley, Marjorie Perloff & Nicole Peyrafitte (2011).

Other work includes the CD Routes, not Roots (with Munir Beken, oud; Mike Bisio, bass; Ben Chadabe, percussion; Mitch Elrod, guitar; Ta’wil Productions). With Jerome Rothenberg he edited Poems for the Millennium, vol. 1 & 2: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry, and with Habib. Tengour Poems for the Millennium, vol. 3: The University of California Book of North African Literature.

When not on the road, he lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with his wife, multimedia praticienne Nicole Peyrafitte. A volume of their collaborative work, to be called Domopoetics, will be published in the near future.