Eliaz Cohen offers a unique poetic voice in contemporary Israeli poetry – a voice that bridges over of the seemingly unbridgeable divides between observant and secular, Jews and Palestinians and Left and Right. This session will explore poems dealing with love, faith, politics and the complexities of family stories. Eliaz will be with us to answer questions and share insights

Meshiv HaRuach – A Breath of Fresh Air and A Prayer
In 1994, Eliaz Cohen brought a real renaissance to the Israeli cultural world. He created Mashiv HaRuach, a literary periodical committed to the building a diverse Jewish Israeli culture that is creative and innovative yet steeped in the richness of Jewish heritage and tradition. He did not do it single handedly. In this session Eliaz Cohen will be joined by poets Sivan Har Shefi, Shlomit Naim Naor and Hadas Shacham Zonenfeld. They will share poems of love, gender and faith alongside stories of their particular poetic voices.

Eliaz Cohen is a second generation settler and committed to Jews living in the entire Biblical land. But wants to do it, seemingly integrated into bi-national landscape. He has an entire cycle of poems on the pain of the disengagement from Azza and imagines his own Kfar Etzion being evacuated. He dreams about reserve duty and the Utopian or apocalyptic life in the settlements, consisting of Palestinian refugee camps, suicide bombers, dangerous missions, and an elusive hope for peace. He stresses his knowledge of Arabic and interconnections with Palestinians. He is an editor of the “Mashiv Haru’ach” journal of poetry and author of four published collections of poetry and was the recipient of the “Prime Minister’s Award” for literature in 2006.