I am now working on a biography of the most prolific woman writer of Yiddish: Kadya Molodowsky. The next poem I will add to the blog on Rivka Basman Beh-Haim is dedicated to Kadya.
At the end of 2020, Rivka Basman Ben-Haim put out yet another book. Entitled “Bloom from Ash” and dedicated to her murdered nearly-8-year-old brother, it is about her experiences in the Holocaust. Some of the […]
I am pleased to announce that three of Basman Ben-Haim’s books can now be ordered at this site. What follows are the 3 such payment options. The first is for the Yiddish only book, recently published, entitled […]
What follows is my translation of an as-yet unpublished poem. When I asked the poet why this poem was not included in her new book, she told me it was not intentional. It simply got left out.
Below is my translation of the second poem in Basman Ben-Haim’s new book. It is an account of the time when the couple lived on kibbutz Ha-Ma’apil and the poet brought home a bunch of flowers for her husband to […]
Below is my translation of the title poem of Basman Ben-Haim’s new book. Like the book, the poem is entitled “Eternal Paths”. Unquestionably, the addressee in this poem is Mula, the poet’s deceased […]
It’s always a joy when Rivka Basman Ben-Haim puts out a new book. Her newest book, entitled “Eybike Vegn”, Eternal Paths, contains sixty-four new poems. Like every other book that Basman Ben-Haim has written, […]
The following poem is entitled Baym Doktor, At the Doctor. It can be found on page 54 of Basman Ben-Haim’s newest book (published June, 2018) Eybike Vegn, Eternal Paths. Below is the hand-written (not altogether […]
The poem below, entitled “Arum dem refreyn”, “About that refrain”, is another one of Basman Ben-Haim’s musings on the nature of time. This is a subject that has preoccupied her over the years; this poem is only […]
The French-language poet and translator, Sabine Huynh has put on the Internet her own translations of Basman Ben-Haim’s poetry alongside my English translations. This is the link to her site:
2016 saw the publication of yet another dual-language collection of Basman Ben-Haim’s poetry. This time it was a Yiddish-English collection entitled, “The Thirteenth Hour”. The book’s publisher is MayApple […]
In 2016, Rivka Basman Ben-Haim put out a dual-language, Yiddish-Hebrew book entitled Der Shmeykhl fun a Boym, The Smile of a Tree. Its Hebrew translators were Hamutal Bar Yosef, Yehudah G […]
Rivka Basman Ben- Haim delighted in Kadya Molodowsky’s poetry when she herself was a schoolgirl in pre-WWII Lithuania. After WWII, when Molodowsky edited a collection of poems on the H […]
I should point out that I, the writer and maintainer of this blog, am not the poet. I am an English translator of the poet, and I hold the post of Hebraic and Judaic Studies at Lehman College, the 4-year senior college of CUNY in the Bronx. I believe Rivka counts me as one of […]