RAVSAK Hebrew Poetry Contest 2013


תחרות שירה עברית 2013 לתלמידי בתי ספר קהילתיים

The Winners

As you may remember from an earlier post, I was the judge this year for The Jewish Community Day School Network (RAVSAK)'s annual Hebrew Poetry Contest.

Click on the link below the photo and go to p. 44 of  the online PDF of HaYidion's Summer 2013 issue to see inspiring Hebrew poetry by grade 4-12 students. Read the Winners and Runners-up (all translated to English, as well), grouped by grades and by native and non-native Hebrew.

Thanks to Dr. Elliott Rabin, Director of Educational Programs at RAVSAK, for his elegant management of this activity and to all the others at RAVSAK who made this possible.

Besides the act of judging, itself -- of choosing this one over that, it seemed so important to me to reward the students and their efforts with evidence of close attention to their poetry. I tried to reflect their art back to them as I had experienced and appreciated it.  I also wanted to clarify to the winners and runners-up (and their parents and teachers) something of why these poems impressed me as particularly outstanding among the scores of fine submissions. See my comments under the Winning and Runner-up Poems:

from "HaYidion" Summer 2013 p. 44, the journal of
RAVSAK -- The Jewish Community Day School Network

Click here and go to pp.44-50 for Winning and Runner-up poems and commentary:


You will find the poems I chose as honorable mentions and a few audio clips of students reading their poems on the contest pages on the RAVSAK website:
http://www.ravsak.org/news/717/221/Hebrew-Poetry-Contest-2013/d,HaYidion#.Ua5wGqPD_IV

MY EARLIER POST -- points to interview:

The very existence of this activity is a minor miracle on the North American scene (kudos to RAVSAK), not to mention the surprisingly sophisticated and sensitive works produced with and without "quantities" of Hebrew language. Functioning is the key, as our mentor at Hebrew at the Center says -- not what they know, but putting it to real-life use. Read these poems for what CAN be done when motivation (read, "a little excitement") is thrown into the mix.

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