Pesach Rotem
Biography
Pesach Rotem was born and raised in New York. He went to Hebrew School and had a Bar Mitzvah in a Reform temple. He received his B.A. from Princeton University and his J.D. from St. John’s University. He now lives with his wife Coco in Yodfat in the Lower Galilee, a village referred to as Jotapata in the English translation of Josephus’s The Jewish War. Pesach has served as secretary of the Voices Israel Group of Poets in English and as treasurer of the Israel Association of Writers in English. He currently serves as barman of the Karmiel Folk Klub. He has had more than seventy-five poems published in a variety of literary journals in Israel and the United States. His poem “Professor Hofstadter’s Brain” was nominated for a Best of the Net award.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
My poetry deals with themes of:
• Biblical texts (“Story of Esau,” “A Big Mistake”)
• Jewish holidays and ritual (“Nisan,” “Shabbat Shuvah”
• Jewish history (“Josephus in Yodfat,” “The First Jewish President”)
• Antisemitism (“Even in America”)
• The situation in Israel (“Who Put the Ax in Al Aqsa?” “Haiku for Judih”)
Links to Sample Works
The Lake, “Ripple”
Synchronized Chaos, “Why an Apple?”
Poets Reading the News, “The Gift”
