Poetry festival moves from evacuated northern border town Metula to Jerusalem
Along with most residents, event is forced to relocate southward; with poems of battle, loss and rebirth, co-director says war ‘opened a kind of black box’ of trauma for many poets
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
For the first time in 27 years, the Metula Poetry Festival won’t be held in Metula, a rustic northern town abutting the Israel-Lebanon border, but rather in Jerusalem.
“It just wasn’t an option this year,” said Benny Ziffer, co-artistic director of the festival. “We’ve had other problematic years, but this time, the town is still completely evacuated.”
Metula, a village of some 1,500 residents, known for its views of Mount Hermon and collection of quaint bed-and-breakfasts, is surrounded by Lebanon on three sides.
It’s always been susceptible to tensions on Israel’s northern border, and it became a ghost town in 2006 when dozens of rockets hit it in the Second Lebanon War.
Since October 2023, however, in light of the steady stream of rocket and drone attacks from the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, its residents have been evacuated to hotels and apartments in the nearby towns and villages of the Galilee.
In June, Metula Mayor David Azoulay said that forty percent of residents’ houses had been damaged, and almost 200 houses were burned during the previous eight months.
“I’m sad,” said poet Karen Alkalay-Gut, who has been attending and appearing in the festival since its start, and spoke of it as a melting pot where poets of different backgrounds and influences meet one another. “It’s important that the festival goes on, that culture continues and we see the connection between the two, but Metula is a special place.”
The northern village is always incredibly welcoming, added Alkalay-Gut, with residents who attend the readings and “give back a wonderful sense of what the countryside is like,” she said.
The festival, Wednesday to Friday of this week, will take place in Jerusalem’s Confederation House, managed by Effie Benaya who also produces the Metula event each year, with some events held in the auditoriums of the nearby Mishkenot Sha’ananim and Khan Theater — all within walking distance of one another and of the Old City.
Ziffer, meanwhile, is busy considering the pros of holding the poetry event in the holy city.
There are some obvious advantages, such as this year’s focus on the poetry of Yehuda Amichai, marking 100 years since the birth of the Israel Prize-winning poet who lived in Jerusalem and wrote many poems about his hometown.
This year’s festival will also include more religious poetry than usual, with works written by religious Zionist poets, a group not always seen at the Metula event.
Those poems came into the mainstream this year, said Ziffer, with one event featuring Rabbi Elhanan Nir, a poet who stirred up Israel’s religious camp with his post-October 7 work, “We Need a New Torah,” looking for religious and spiritual guidance during the ongoing crisis.
In Nir’s poem, he speaks of needing a new Torah and other books of commentary and Jewish law, along with new cultural references and works, following the deadly Hamas attack of October 7.
“Now like air to breathe
We need a new Torah.
Now, gasping for air and with choking throats
We need a new Mishnah and a new Gemara….
…For we were all washed away in the rivers of Re’im and Be’eri
And we have no mountain within us nor other tablets
And no Moses and no strength
And now everything
Is in our hands”
“The people who first reacted to October 7 and the war were poets from that world with amazing poems,” said Ziffer. “It’s poets that we often paid less attention to, and this war made their poems much more important.”
Poets from the religiously observant world have often resisted coming to the Metula event, as it is traditionally held over Shabbat, and in a wholly secular atmosphere.
This year, however, the festival is being held during the week, avoiding the Sabbath observance issues.
The three-day event will also present poetry about the war that began with the vicious Hamas attack of October 7, with poems about trauma and orphanhood, poems from residents of the southern kibbutz communities, and poems by soldiers who wrote about their battle experiences.
Ziffer said he’s been suspicious of poetry that reacts immediately to dramatic events, believing that writers need time to gain perspective, but found that the post-October 7 poetry was good, and resonated.
“The war is a kind of trigger for all kinds of poets about traumas from the past,” said Ziffer. “It opened a kind of black box for them, as they wrote about a father injured in the Six Day War, or a sibling lost in battle.”
He’s expecting a broader audience than usual, with participants from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The festival is organizing buses to Jerusalem for Metula residents evacuated from their homes as well as for any evacuated residents of the north and south, with the help of financial support from the Culture and Sports Ministry, the Mifal Hapayis for Culture and Art, the Jerusalem Foundation and the Jerusalem Municipality.
Entrance to all of the poetry festival events is free, except for shows that will be held at the Khan Theater, with NIS 30 tickets.
The festival will close on Friday afternoon with a gathering of kibbutz poets from the south, including musician Hemi Rudner, who was born in Givat Brenner, the poet Israel Neta from Kibbutz Be’eri, and Ruth Sabath, a member of Kibbutz Magen, along with Iftach Alony and Yotam Amitai from Kibbutz Gvulot.
That session will discuss the concept of the kibbutz community, and whether the idea of a collective community has collapsed or will find new hope and direction after the atrocities of October 7.
There will also be tribute events for mature poets with a wide body of work, including Hamutal Bar-Yosef and Alkalay-Gut, who was born in England, raised in the US and mostly writes in English. Alkalay-Gut will appear on three panels, including one on Friday in which she’ll speak about poetry and the way different languages mix.
For more information about specific events and times, see the Confederation House website.
