Collection

Poems of Jewish Faith and Culture

From holiday poems to quiet spiritual reflections, these poems and articles celebrate the interweaving of Jewish faith, cultural traditions, and literary history.

BY The Editors

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Holidays
Prayers & Songs
Hymns, blessings, and invocations to read alongside scripture and traditional prayers.
  • Open the gates—the radiant portals,
    Swift to Thy sons who are lovely and pure.
  • I hereby call
           to the Ancient of Days
    to summon His will
           to drive them away—
  • At altars, ye mighty, proclaim loud His praise,
    And multitudes too may whisper His lays.
  • Holy—He sets apart one day in all the year;
    Holy—He pardons them whose longing turns to Him.
  • You are All
    and I am a particle. Who should have mercy
    on a particle if not the All?
  • Send the dew of blessing, the dew of grace;
    renew my dispensation, and grant me length of days.
On Faith & Scripture
Often deep in dialogue with holy scripture, these poems update Judaism for contemporary culture on many continents.
Culture & History
Food, family, community, exile, and struggle through the long lens of Jewish history.
Articles & Blog Posts
On Jewish religious, cultural, and literary tradition.
  • What, apart from a historical and armchair sense of the intense religious experience of spiritual adepts, does Kabbalah—and specifically the poetry of Kabbalah—have to tell us as readers today?
  • In August 2008, I flew to Budapest, Hungary, to meet with the 96-year old widow of the poet Miklós Radnóti.
  • Poets of different faiths come together over the Bible’s most celebrated lyrics.
  • I got the question I most often get (this one is always, always asked by a women and never by a man): “are you worried about what your children or family will think about your poems?” Often, in response to this question I talk about being Jewish.
  • “One Whole Voice” is comprised of extracts from A God in the House: Poets Talk about Faith, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler.
More Poets Of Jewish Experience
For further reading, browse the biographies and bibliographies of poets who write about Jewish faith and culture