Welcome to Voices Israel

Who We Are:

Voices Israel is the natural home for Israeli poets writing in English, and for those abroad who support our goals and share our enthusiasm for poetry. From our initial launch by four founders in 1971, we have grown to a membership of around 150 poets in Israel and several other countries.  We are a fully-accredited and approved organization registered since 1993 with the Israel Organizations Authority.  

For Fuller Information:

Come join us!

We’re always happy to welcome both new and established (yes and would-be) poets into our family!

  • To attend a local meeting to try us out – contact your local Coordinator. You’re welcome to ask to attend, as a guest, any of our local meetings, via Zoom or in-person, for two or at most three meetings prior to deciding whether to join. 
  • To become a member of Voices Israel – fill in our membership application form and send it in! Full details are on our Membership page. Our modest annual membership dues cover our costs and entitle you to a free copy of the Anthology and reduced fees for workshops.

Some of our local groups hold face-to-face meetings, while others meet via Zoom. For members with no convenient local group, we also have a Global Group which includes members from both Israel and abroad: see the Our Team page for contact details of its coordinator.

Chapbooks currently available can be ordered via PayPal: click the link below, it will ask you to log in to your PayPal account and then fill in the amount to send Voices Israel and a note saying what the payment is for. Please also send an email to whoever is distributing them (currently, our President Judy Koren: president.voices@gmail.com).

The link: PayPal.me/VoicesIsrael.

Voices Israel and the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023

We are heartbroken to announce that Kibbutz Nir Oz has confirmed the death of Judih Weinstein, an active member of the Voices Israel Southern Group, and her husband Gad Haggai. They went on an early morning walk near their kibbutz, Nir Oz, on October 7, and were caught up in the horrendous Hamas attack. Judih called kibbutz paramedics and reported that they had both been shot by terrorists on a motorcycle and that Gad was badly wounded. Nothing was then heard of them until the announcement on December 28th (see our War Blog) that both were murdered that same day, October 7, and their bodies taken to Gaza.

We are preparing a memorial chapbook in Judih’s honour. Thank you to the Haggai family for approving the project, and to everyone who sent us memorial poems for it. We are planning to distribute it free to all members together with this year’s anthology.

The brother-in-law of the daughter of our member Edit Gavriely was murdered by the terrorists at the Nova Music Festival near Re’im. Edit writes, “At 2:30 AM on Friday our daughter gave birth to our ninth grandchild, a beautiful baby girl named Emma. At 2:30 PM her husband buried his brother. Life and death – hand in hand.” May his memory be a blessing.

Susan Rosenberg’s granddaughter Deborah, and Deborah’s husband Shlomi, were murdered by the Hamas terrorists on October 7. We all share the sorrow of Susan, Voices Israel’s oldest member, and her family.

Matthew, the son of our Illinois member David Silverman, is now serving in the Israeli army. I am certain that many others of our members also have children or grandchildren defending our nation. Matthew and all of these other brave young men and women should be thanked, honored, and blessed. We pray for their safety.

What we’ve been doing of late


Below is the list of our activities for the last few months. To see the full list of what we’ve been doing, check out our Voices Israel’s Activities page

April to June 2024

We held the awards events for the Bar Sagi Young Poets Prize and for the Reuben Rose competition on April 14th at 7 pm, via Zoom.

We held our Annual General Meeting (AGM) on April 7, 2024 at 7 pm, via Zoom. As usual it ended with an Open Mic.

Our Anthology judges are busy judging the submissions to this year’s Anthology; the submission period ended at the end of March.

January to March 2024

We announced the results of the 2023 Reuben Rose International Competition. Congratulations to all the winners and recipients of Honourable Mentions!

We’ve produced the chapbook resulting from our latest mini-Zoom workshop, “Broken Things,” and have distributed it to all workshop participants.

October to December 2023

We held another mini-Zoom workshop entitled “Broken Things” on December 4th at 7 pm Israel time, For a description see the workshop page.

The chapbook from our October 18 workshop, “Write At This Moment,” has been produced and sent to all participants.

Judging of entries for the 2023 Reuben Rose competition is ongoing; it has been somewhat delayed but the results are expected to be announced in mid-January. Meanwhile the submission period for the 2024 Anthology opened on December 17th. To enter, see our Submitting to the Anthology page.

The submission period for the 5th (2024) Bar Sagi Young Poets Prize competition opened on November 15th and runs through the end of February 2024. To enter, see the Bar Sagi Prize Rules and Guidelines page.

Our launch event for the 2023 Voices Israel Anthology was held on October 23rd as planned, only via Zoom instead of a hybrid in-person plus Zoom event. For details see the 2023 Anthology Launch page.

Following the horrific Hamas attack and slaughter of over 1,200 people, mainly civilians, our “Fern Hill” workshop scheduled for October 18th was postponed. But our workshop coordinator, Elana Dorfman, and Anthology editor, Dina Yehuda, gave a joint workshop on that date, “Write at this Moment,” giving participants a much-needed opportunity to explore emotions and try to focus on the positive. Details are on the page for that workshop. An e-chapbook of the poems written or started as this workshop has been produced and sent to all participants..

What our members have been doing

Below is a list of our members’ latest poetic achievements, with links to their publications where available. To see the full list, check out our Members’ Activities page.

April 2024: Congratulations to:

Judy Koren whose poem “Jaffa, as Microcosm” has been selected for the Kibbutz Gezer multimedia group exhibition “Now” in April 2024.

Elana Wolff, whose poem “Canterbury Bells” was published in Juniper at https://juniperpoetry.com/canterbury-bells-by-elana-wolff/ and who had four poems published in The /tƐmz/ Review at www.thetemzreview.com/wolff.html.

Julian Alper, Michele Bustin, Bob Findyzs, Ethelea Katzenell, and Mark L. Levinson, whose poems have been published in the special “Poems for Israel, October 2023” section of The Deronda Review online at http://www.derondareview.org/backingIsrael.htm.

March 2024: Congratulations to:

Julian Alper, whose essay “Israel-Hamas War: Learning from nature to work together” was published in The Jerusalem Report in print and online at www.jpost.com/opinion/article-783478.

Isaac Cohen, who was awarded a Golden Bridge for the development of world literature, preservation of peace, and strengthening of friendship between peoples.

Lilian Cohen, on the publication of her book Murder in Hebrew, a crime thriller set in the Carmel Market in Israel. www.underthesun.net.au/product/murder-in-hebrew-ebook/

Simon Constam, on the publication of his book of poems, Domestic Recusals. www.amazon.com/Domestic-Recusals-Simon-Constam/dp/1990496474/

Ira and Debbie Director, who organized an exhibition at the Gezer Gallery of poetry and photography on “Women in the Eyes of Women.” Wendy Blumfield and Judy Koren both had poems included in the exhibition.

Yiskah Rosenfeld, whose poem “On Becoming a Woman” won second place in the Frontier Poetry Roots & Roads poetry competition: www.frontierpoetry.com/2024/01/24/2023-frontier-roots-and-roads-winner-yiskah-rosenfeld/
Pesach Rotem, whose poems “A Gazan Family Celebration” and “A Time for War and A Time for Peace” were published in Green Golem: https://greengolemmag.com/author/protem/

Elana Wolff, whose poems “I Never Grow Weary of Gazing at Trees,” “Poem for a Temperamental Solstice,” and “Descant,” were paired with photographs by Gun Roze and published as “Soul Chorus” in Galaxy Brain at https://galaxybrain.ca/edition-22/gun-roze-and-elana-wolff/