Regarding Semana Poetica, aliyahs, and the great Topol

News for this week? Semana Poética! This evening I managed to tear myself away from piles of homework and head to Stern between shifts at the circ. desk, catching tonight's poets, David Leo Garcia (Spain) and Tatiana Shcherbina (Russia).... Admittedly, the first caught me off guard - I'd mumbled under my breath en route to the reading when a college-age guy walking in front of me paused several times in an attempt to light his cigarette. (Note: smoking is bad for your health.) ...turns out, this was the very poet I was going to see; Garcia is 22.

Aside from sheer interest's sake, though, we can tie this back to the ME in two direct lights - 1.Dickinson professor and Israeli Nitsa Kann will be reading on Thursday (at noon in the Great Room), and 2.Psoy Korolenko will be making his appearance on Wednesday at 7. Korolenko, with the intriguing pseudonym of Pavel Lion, is a Russian Jew - an identification that automatically links him to much of Israel's history, were we to consider the fact that the First, Second, and Third Aliyahs very much came out of Eastern Europe and Russia. This, in turn, crops up in things like the philosophy of the kibbutzim, and even political parties, as seen in the base of Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home), part of the currently ruling coalition government and led by Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Leiberman (for better or worse... ahem).

A basic YouTube search of Psoy Korolenko is most definitely worth the few seconds it takes to type it in, and yields a few rather intriguing results. Take this, for instance:

...right. Frankly, I'm not quite sure what to say in response to this, other than note the potential interest/ intrigue/ entertainment factor of his upcoming appearance at Dickinson. He certainly seems to be a colorful character, to say the least.

Honestly, when I think "Russian Jew," I'm just as likely to think of Topol and "Fiddler on the Roof" as I am to think Yisrael Beitenu.... or, now, Psoy Korolenko. After all, the film is a classic - and who could forget a scene such as this one? For those as yet unfamiliar with the story of a Jewish community's experience in Russia through the eyes of Tevye, we have it in the library; take a gander.

*By the by, just in case you're considering a move to Israel: help in making your aliyah a smoother process, courtesy of the Jewish Agency for Israel....