Betsy Rosenberg, one of Israel’s most sought-after English translators and poets, spoke Thursday afternoon in a presentation entitled “In Other Words: Rendering Israeli Culture into English.”
“I never planned to be a translator,” said Rosenberg. “But it often seems to be a natural course for those who grow up bilingual and have an intuitive knowledge of both languages. There seemed to be some inner logic at work in my life that led me down that path.”
Although she was born and educated in the United States, Rosenberg has been a resident of Israel since 1967. She won the Marshall Award for Translation of Children’s Literature in 2000, and Indiana University recently established “The Betsy Rosenberg Archives,” a collection of her works created for scholars to study the different aspects of translation.
“Betsy is unique in her ability to translate with a faithfulness to Hebrew, but also with a fine ear for English,” said Director of the Jewish and Israel Studies Certificate Program and Associate Professor of Religion Jeremy Zwelling. According to Zwelling, the two have been friends for over twenty years as both belong to a circle of Jerusalem residents and visitors and translators.
Greeting her audience with a smile, Rosenberg began to read a collection of her best poems. Her first, entitled “Semantic Sea,” captured the feeling of a ship being tossed between the vast spaces spanning the distance between Europe and America. The lines, “Tousled by strings and billowing woodwinds/With some enormous centuries in my hold,” expressed the often elusive process of translation.
“This poem captured for me some of the delights, as well as the responsibilities and the anguish, of rendering one culture and language with all its uniqueness into another language for another culture,” said Zwelling, who claimed the poem as his favorite of the ones Rosenberg read aloud.
In the poem “China,” Rosenberg described another challenge of translation, that of the discrepancies between different dictionaries.
“Dictionaries are mysterious,” she said. “Some are extremely strict, while others encompass a wider range of meanings. It’s as if they have their own personalities.”
Rosenberg elucidated another remarkably insightful aspect of translation in “In Memorium.” Written shortly after the death of a close friend and Russian poet, it illustrated the psychic capacity that is often necessary in order to transfer meaning from one language to another.
“[This concept] can be compared to those times when someone describes a dream to you, and you can visualize every detail perfectly in your head,” Rosenberg said. “The reason that poetry and translation are possible is this conveying of images in an almost telepathic manner.”
This telepathy, perhaps, is what lends such a pleasing and beautiful quality to Rosenberg’s work.
Yet, she also insisted that collaboration can be one of the most stimulating parts of the process.
“I translate first and foremost for the author,” Rosenberg said. “He or she has to feel that it is his or her voice being conveyed.”
In addition to being a poet and translator, Rosenberg is also an accomplished musician and performer. Her CD, entitled “Kit and Caboodle,” is geared toward children.
Many of the audience members enjoyed Rosenberg’s lecture, especially the personal aspects of her presentation.
“I really appreciated Betsy’s effort to connect with her audience before and during her presentation by asking everyone’s names and creating a relaxed atmosphere for questions and comments,” said Dayna York ’07. “Poetry is extremely personal being that it is one’s own thoughts and feelings during a certain point in one’s life. I think that it was understandably important for Betsy to try to connect with her audience before sharing some of her most personal works.”
Zwelling and colleague Dalit Katz feel that students can greatly benefit from listening to speakers such as Rosenberg. In their poet series “Voices from Israel,” they have been bringing many distinguished poets, writers, and cultural figures to campus.
Next semester Jewish and Israel Studies will be sponsoring an Israel Film Festival featuring six very recent (and internationally acclaimed) films to campus. In addition, Professor Magda Teter from the Jewish Studies and the History Departments has arranged a four-week residency next semester for an Israeli artist.
“These are all efforts to allow our community to appreciate that, in addition to a vibrant and varied political life that is reported in the media covering Israeli society, there is also a very rich and creative cultural life in Israel,” Zwelling said.
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