Mati Shemoelof - Literary Work

Literary Work

Shemoelof has published three poetry books, "The Scar Minimizer" (2001) and "Poetry Between Hazaz and Shemoelof" (2006) "Why Don’t I write Israeli Love Songs" (2010). In addition to having his poetry and articles published in a number of leading Hebrew-language magazines and journals. He co-edited two poetry anthologies, Adoma (Red) (2007) and Tehudot Zehut (Echoing Identities) (2007) La-Tzet! ! (2009) Al Tagido BaGat (The influence of the Palestinian Nacba on the Hebrew Poetry) (2010). From 2006 – 2008, he was an editor at the literary journal, HaCivon Mizrah (Eastward).

He has been a regular op-ed contributor to NRG site, the online edition of the Hebrew-language newspaper Ma’ariv. He is currently an op-ed contributor at Israel HaYom (Israel Today), a daily Hebrew-language newspaper, and writes reviews at Ynet, Israel’s leading news website. Shemoelof’s writing focuses mainly on poetry, Mizrahi literature, and political and social thought within the cultural context.

He wrote an autobiographic story titled “The Icebergs of the Memory”, which was included in the anthology “Echoing Identities”, published by Am Oved Publisher House in 2007.

Mati Shemoelof co-edited La-Tzet ! an anthology of works against the war in Gaza, which was the result of the cooperation of a number of literary projects, Cultural Guerilla among them. The anthology of art and poetry came out on the third day of the war and sold an edition within one month. La-Tzet! Can be seen as a continuation of the spirit of unification and revolt in front of the political situation through cultural cooperation seen in projects such as Red: An Anthology of Class Poetry (2007) that has sold three editions. La-Tzet was translated into Arabic and published both in Egypt and Lebanon.

With the election of U.S. president Barack Obama, Shemoelof was part of the publication of the Manifesto, which called “New Spirit: An open letter from Israeli Descendants of the Countries of Islam”: “We, the Israeli sons and daughters of parents originating in the Islamic and Arab countries, show our support of the new spirit exemplified by President Obama in his speech in Cairo – a spirit of pacification, sensible vision, and the pursuit of justice and respect. Respect to the different religions, cultures, and humans.”