Students honor Amichai

With poetry set to live guitar and piano music, along with several somber readings, the Penn community celebrated the life and work of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai in Houston Hall's Bodek Lounge last night. Around 60 students and faculty members showed up to honor Amichai, who was the poet laureate of Israel and died in September at the age of 76. Elizabeth Swados, a Tony and Emmy award-nominated Broadway composer, combined Amichai's poetry with music by playing the guitar and singing three compositions. Swados, who was a friend of Amichai, also reminisced about their first meeting. She went to his home in Jerusalem to play for him, asking for permission to turn his poetry into song. "It was a joy to know him," she said. "We wanted to do a musical together." Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Professor Nili Gold, also a friend of Amichai, gave interpretations of several of his poems and commented on his bestseller status in Israel. According to Gold, well-known English poet Ted Hughes was the first to translate Amichai's work into English. His work has since been translated into 37 languages. Students and faculty read some of his poetry aloud in Hebrew, English, German, Italian, French, Spanish and Arabic. Gold referred to the man as "the voice of a soldier that rejected war in a matter of fact, almost practical way." Giora Becher, the Israeli Consul General of Philadelphia, also spoke at the memorial, adding that he knows of a statistic that claims Israelis buy more poetry books than people from other countries. He added that poetry perhaps helps them understand themselves better in a war-torn country. He speculated as to why Amichai's poetry was so popular. "For Amichai, Jerusalem was not a political concept," he said. "What you see in Amichai's poetry is the people behind Jerusalem." College sophomore Lauren Gross, who helped coordinate the event, said that her desire to honor Amichai's memory stems from her course work. "I took a Hebrew literature class and we read a lot of his work," Gross added, noting that he is on the syllabus of many Hebrew literature courses at Penn. Amichai was the recipient of the prestigious Israel Prize. He published 11 volumes of poetry in addition to several short stories and novels.