During the years preceding Israel’s independence and the following two decades, Nathan Alterman’s editorial poems appeared weekly in the Israeli press. This bilingual anthology includes selections from The Seventh Column that are political, patriotic, lyrical, and reproving, with accompanying historical and cultural introductions. It embodies the formative Israeli experience, raising questions that still resonate today.
“Alterman’s Seventh Column poems helped a young nation see itself with honesty, courage, and moral imagination. Loving fiercely and critiquing fearlessly, he gave voice to those history too often pushed to its margins. At a time when our relationship with Israel demands both deep commitment and clear-eyed conscience, this collection asks poetry to do what it does best: challenge, enlarge, and heal the Jewish soul.”
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Central Synagogue
“Alterman was Israel’s poetic conscience for over three decades—its comforter in grief, its mirror in moments of reckoning. This beautifully rendered volume brings his voice to English readers for the first time at the scale it deserves. To read this volume is to hold Israel’s soul in your hands.”
Rabbi Elliot J. Cosgrove, Ph.D., Park Avenue Synagogue
“Alterman’s poetry speaks with intellectual depth and moral imagination across generations. At this moment of crisis in Jewish life, this beautiful volume comes to bring us comfort, challenge, and inspiration.”
Prof. Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College
“Written for their moment, yet never confined to it, the poems of The Seventh Column explore enduring questions of Zionism, morality, power, and responsibility.”
Dr. Yizhar Hess, WZO
באספקלריית הימים
משירי העת והעיתון של נתן אלתרמן
מהדורה דו־לשונית עברית • אנגלית
מבחר ובו למעלה מ־60 משירי העת והעיתון של נתן אלתרמן, עיקרם מתוך "הטור השביעי" ו"רגעים". תרגמו וערכו: רחל כורזים, מייקל בונן, הירש כשדן והת'ר סילברמן.
בשיתוף ההסתדרות הציונית העולמית.