The Smile of a Tree 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 Gur-Aryeh, Asher Gal, Roy Greenvald, Benny … Continue reading →

a vayskayt for blog 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 Holocaust (entitled Lider Fun Khurbn, Poems of/from … Continue reading →

Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim’s eulogy for her husband

Mula Ben-Haim and Rivka Basman

I have translated some of the poems that the poet recites on this blog. In time, I will post them. Meantime, all translations of Basman Ben-Hayim’s poems are most welcome. If there are other translations not mentioned here, please feel … Continue reading →

The following article on Basman Ben-Hayim appears in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Women.  It is a bit out of date, but it gives the names of the poet’s books and some extra biographical information not found in the other articles. … Continue reading →

The following article,  gives an overview of Basman Ben-Hayim’s poetry.  It has English translations of poems not found in the introductory essay here (“Not Yet…”), an extended bibliography of translations of her poems into Hebrew and references to translations into English other … Continue reading →

The following 70 tracks were on a CD that Basman Ben-Hayim made in Israel.  She and the producer of the CD disc, Mr. Leo Fayerman,  have given me permission to put these recordings online for the general public. addendum for … Continue reading →

                  Not Yet– A Great Yiddish Poet Still Lives             When Avrohom Sutzkever died in January, 2010, word went out that “the last great Yiddish poet” was gone.  But there is a very different, very fine Yiddish poet who is … Continue reading →