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The Poems and Rivers of Jerusalem

JL;DR SUMMARY Shai Secunda explores the enduring poetic fascination with Jerusalem through a review of Rachel Tzvia Back's anthology "This Longing City: Modern Hebrew Poems of Jerusalem." A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

IdentityJerusalemPoetryYehuda AmichaiTranslationHebrew LiteratureAnthologyLongingModern HebrewRachel Tzvia Back

Places mentioned

Jerusalem, Israel
"The Psalmist sang of Jerusalem and the mountains around it, which recalled how God surrounded His people now and forevermore."
Northern District, Israel
"or in the metered Hebrew of medieval bards like Judah Halevi, who while living on Europes western edge turned his heart to Jerusalem, in the distant east."
United States
"Mirroring her grandfathers life, Back grew up in the United States, in a family that looked to Jerusalem and traveled there frequently."
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Cairo Item ID 82382
Cairo Source ID 11
Retrieved 2026-05-16 05:31:00 UTC
Curated 2026-05-16 08:30:47 UTC