Original Article Published on The Jewish Ledger

NEW HAVEN — Yehuda Amichai lived most of his life in Israel until his death in 2000. Now, the famous Israeli poet lives on at Yale University.

Amichais extensive personal papers and literary archive are the first of a major writer in Hebrew to be added to Yales Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. And Yale will host an international conference Oct. 20-21, celebrating Amichais life and work.

Amichai, considered one of the great poets of modern times, was born in Germany in 1924 to a religious Jewish family. His family immigrated to Palestine in 1935, lived briefly in Petach Tikvah and settled in Jerusalem. In World War II he fought with the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, and in 1946, he joined the Palmach. During the War of Independence he fought in the Negev. Following the war, Amichai attended Hebrew University, where he studied Bible and Hebrew literature. He then served as a secondary school teacher.

According to Benjamin Harshav, the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Religion at Yale, Amichai is the most universal Israeli poet, expressing the human conditionIn an age of ideology, he celebrated the individuals private moments and existential situation; in an age of war, he celebrated love and love-making. Amichai has been praised for the depth and complexity of his language as well as its accessibility-even in translation from the original Hebrew. Harshav, a close friend of Amichais for over 50 years, was one of Amichais chief translators. He and Barbara Harshav translated two of Amichais poetry books-Even a Fist Was Once an Open Palm with Fingers and Yechuda Amichai, A Life of Poetry 1948-1994 into English.

The conference, entitled Poetics and Politics in Yehuda Amichais World, kicks off Saturday night Oct. 20, at 8:30pm at Yales Slifka Center for Jewish Life (Free and open to the public). Professor Harshav will deliver a keynote address entitled, Political Discourse and Situational Cognition in Amichais Poetry.

According to Dr. Nanette Stahl, Judaica Curator at the Yale University Library and coordinator of the conference, The conference is a way to celebrate Amichai and acknowledge his contribution to modernist poetry.

Among the speakers at the conference are some of the most renowned scholars of poetry. Four of the seven speakers are coming from Israel. All seven speakers have written about Amichai and some have also published English translations of his poetry.

Speakers and topics on Sunday, Oct. 21 (9:30am – 4:30pm) include Robert Alter on Yehuda Amichai: At Play in the Fields of Verse, Menakhem Perry on Facing the Dead: The New Poetics of the Young Amichai, and Chana Kronfeld on Making Honey from all the Buzz and Babble: Translation as Metaphor in the Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. Other speakers include Boaz Arpaly, Michael Gluzman, Ziva Ben Porat and Vered Shem-Tov.

The final session will be a roundtable discussion (5-6pm), presented by Professors William Cutter, Barbara Harshav, Geoffrey Hartman and Barbara Mann, and by Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic. A gala reception 6-7pm. Sunday will be attended by his widow, Hana Amichai.

Stahl further notes, Yale is privileged to have the Yehuda Amichai papers in the Beinecke Library, along with the archives of many other great poets of the 20th century.

The archives consist of his personal notebooks from the 1950s to the late 1990s, his correspondence with literary figures from Israel, Europe and the United States and other countries such as Japan and China. They also include the manuscripts of most of his published poetry both in Hebrew and in translation to other languages. Among his papers are also some of his unpublished poems. Amichai also wrote works in prose and the archives includes the manuscripts of his published essays and plays. The archives are open to anyone who wishes to study them.

The Amichai conference is sponsored by the Yale University Library, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Program in Judaic Studies, the Department of Comparative Literature, the Whitney Humanities Center, the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation and the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempt Memorial Fund.

For more information, contact Nanette Stahl at 203-432-7207 or nanette.stahl@yale.edu The conference website can be viewed at http://www.library.yale.edu

The conference is free and open to the public.

Filed under: Connecticut Jewish Ledger, Newspaper Articles (Source: http://www.jewishledger.com)

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A kosher lobster has been spotted in Boston this summer. And it is the Israeli variety.

Israeli tennis player Amir Hadad is one of five players on the co-ed Boston Lobsters World Team Tennis (WTT) team. World Team Tennis, co-founded by Billie Jean King in 1974, features 11 teams from across the United States, playing a 14 match season in the month of July. Each WTT “match” features five events — men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles. A WTT “set” is the first player or team to win five games. The winner of the “match” is the team to win the most games.

Hadad returned to the Lobsters for a second consecutive season after playing for the St. Louis Aces in 2003 and 2004. The 6′, 185 pound right hander (who hits with a two-handed backhand) was born in Ramle, Israel and currently lives in Budapest, Hungary with his wife of ten years, and their three year old daughter. Most of the Hadad family still lives in Israel, and Amir plans to eventually return there.

Hadad appreciates the support he has received from the Jewish community while on the road.

“The Jewish community is always so nice and supportive. I don’t spend so much time in Israel, and it is tough to be away from home-and it is nice to come across Hebrew speakers on the road,” he said, in an interview at the Beren Tennis Center at Harvard University before a recent match.

Hadad was looking forward to meeting up with fellow Israel tennis players Andy Ram and Yoni Erlich, who were on the roster of the St. Louis Aces for the summer WTT season.

Hadad fondly recalls his years learning and playing at Israel’s Wingate Institute. “We grew up there-Andy, Yoni, Harel Levy and me.”

Hadad, 29, turned pro in 1995. In 2003, he reached a career high, ranking 180 in the world for singles and 87 for doubles. He is currently ranked 864 in singles and 1284 for doubles.

Hadad has played in many tournaments throughout the world in his 12-year professional career. Hadad has won 11 Challenger doubles events, including Rome in 2006. In 2006, he also won Futures singles titles in Israel and China.

Hadad has also qualified for several prestigious tournaments including Wimbledon, The French Open and the U.S. Open. In 1999, Hadad lost in the first round (for singles) at Wimbledon. In the 2002 French Open, Hadad lost in the 2nd round.

Unique Partnership
Hadad is perhaps best known around the world for playing doubles in the 2002 Wimbledon tournament with Aisam Ul-Haq Quereshi, a Pakistani Muslim. The pair reached the third round at Wimbledon after upsetting the 11th seeds in the second round.

While Hadad and Quereshi never intended to make a statement by teaming up, their pairing made international news. The Pakistani Sports Board threatened to ban Quereshi for teaming with a Jew. In contrast, Hadad received support from his fellow citizens and his government. In time, the Pakistani government’s threat was rescinded, and Quereshi was invited to join Pakistan’s Davis Cup team.

Quereshi, interviewed after a grueling day of both singles and doubles at the Campbell’s Tennis Championships at Newport, Rhode Island last month, is proud of his partnership with Hadad at Wimbeldon.

He reports, “We teamed up to do well — not for the image. You don’t mix politics and religion with sports.”

Hadad recalls, “We played against each other two times-and I beat him two times. The third time, I asked him if he wanted to join me. We had one thing in common-tennis! We played great together — and we have fun on and off the court.” Quereshi and Hadad clearly shared more than a love for tennis. Hadad reports that at tournaments, the two stayed in the same hotel, ate all meals together, hung out before the matches, practiced together, and met each other’s families.

Following their success at Wimbledon, the two planned to team up again at the 2002 U.S. Open. They were awarded a wild card by the tournament and won their first round match. In February, 2003, both were awarded the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award.

Both men hold firm in their convictions that sports transcends politics and religion.

Hadad adds, “Everybody can connect through sports. The religion of the player doesn’t matter.”

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Thirty-eight years ago, many people worried that having campers with special needs in a normal Jewish summer camp would be a disaster. Would those campers bring down the level of Hebrew and Jewish knowledge? Would the speciality staff know how to work with them? Would the regular campers not return in the future? Fortunately, the Tikvah Program Director and the camp director moved forward, invited a small group of children with disabilities to camp, and never looked back. The Tikvah Program continues to grow and evolve, offering an overnight camping experience for campers with various special needs at several locations in the U.S. and Canada.

In Palmer, Massachusetts, Tikvah campers follow a very busy daily schedule consisting of davening (morning prayers), breakfast, bunk clean up, three periods of morning activities, lunch, four afternoon periods, dinner, an evening activity, and finally, showering and bedtime. At the end of eight weeks, Tikvah parents have expressed their appreciation for the language, social and Jewish growth and the independence displayed by their children. Some of these campers with intellectual disabilities, autism and neurological impairments travel as much as a thousand miles to attend the program.

Tikvah campers, like their typical peers ages 9 through 16 years old, enjoy Israeli singing and dancing, swimming, boating, sports, arts and crafts, and electives such as the ropes course, drama, video production and web design. Tikvah campers also participate in vocational training, a buddy program with typical campers and various service projects within the camp. For example, we sold baked goods for soldiers in Israel, and we bake and sell challah each week. The money is being used to build a new water fountain near our baseball field in memory of a dear friend/camper who died of a heart problem a few years ago.

Tikvah campers are constantly interacting with their typical peers in activities, shared mealtime, camp programs and incidental walks along the same road from activity to activity. There are field trips for bowling, chocolate factory visits and blueberry picking as well as the annual camping and canoeing trip. At the end of the camp session, Tikvah campers put on a play (in Hebrew and English) for the entire camp community.

Tikvah campers clearly benefit from the overnight camping experience the various Tikvah Programs offer but it is the rest of camp which is being given the real gift: a four week or eight week opportunity to interact and form meaningful, genuine relationships with people similar and different from themselves. It is our hope and dream that all Jewish children will be able to attend a Jewish summer camp!

This article featured in the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) Religion and Spirituality Division Newsletter, Summer 2007.

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MILFORD/STRATFORD — In two nearby towns, two synagogues plus two rabbis, plus curious young children, equals Yachad, a newly combined religious school.

Congregation Sinai of Milford and Temple Beth Sholom of Stratford have joined together to create Yachad, which in Hebrew means together.

Yachad is largely the result of the realities of small congregational life, said Rabbi Yvonne Youngberg of Temple Beth Shalom.

Youngberg notes that of fifteen students in her Hebrew school last year, three became bar or bat mitzvah and completed Hebrew school.

Our synagogue has always had a strong educational program and we wanted to insure that would continue-so we began to explore new models.

Youngberg feels it was fortuitous that the Conservative Congregation Sinai was moving from West Haven to Milford, approximately six miles from her own Conservative synagogue. Our lay leaders began talking and the six month process leading up to the merger [of the religious schools] was a very positive experience.

Rabbi Dana Bogatz of Congregation Sinai is similarly pleased and relieved by the merger. When I was in West Haven, the Hebrew school was run all by me — alone. I was a staff of one, plus a person helping on Sundays, Rabbi Bogatz said. I am delighted to be in a school with classes as opposed to before when I was teaching students privately. It is very different when students learn from each others.

Bogatz feels a strong affinity toward Sinai.

I used to sit on this pulpit, reports Bogatz affectionately. I had great input into the Hebrew School curriculum years ago.

Bogatz and Youngberg jointly made a few changes and modifications to the curriculum. Both are pleased to serve as teachers in the newly- formed school.

I am very excited to be teaching a combined bar/bat mitzvah class and a course on The Topical Bible. Bogatz said. We will be learning how to put lessons learned in Hebrew school in to practice in their lives.

Grades K-2 will meet at Temple Beth Sholom on Sundays. Grades 3-7 will meet at Temple Beth Sholom on Sundays and at Congregation Sinai on Wednesdays.

Youngberg feels, This is an appropriate and exciting model-and expanding their idea of community and helping them forge connections outside of their own synagogues will help them grow.

For more information about Yachad, contact Congregation Sinai at (203) 934-7946 or Temple Beth Sholom at (203) 378-6175.

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