Janice Rebibo

Janice Rebibo

Janice Silverman Rebibo (born 1950) is a Boston-born Israeli poet who began writing in Hebrew in the mid-1980s.

Janice Silverman Rebibo’s poems have been admired for having, “a new strength and the kind of courage that comprises a strategic breakthrough, a stance of both audacity and humor that adds something new to the war of independence of Israel’s consciousness – a revolution of language, spirit and mind.” (critic Menahem Ben). Rebibo is an Israeli poet born in Boston, who began writing in Hebrew while studying Hebrew language and literature at Hebrew College. Dozens of her poems have appeared in Israel’s major newspapers and journals. Recently, an anthology of Israeli writers of English included several of Rebibo's poems and the journal, Iton 77, featured her Hebrew poem, Etzb’a Elohim (God’s finger). The first of her four poetry collections, Zara (a stranger-woman, referring to the figure in Proverbs), was published in 1997. She later served as chief translator for Natan Yonatan, completing Within the Song to Live, his bilingual volume of selected work, following that popular poet’s death in 2004. Zara Betzion: shirim 1984-2006 (a stranger-woman in Zion), a blend of two literary traditions, is Rebibo’s latest collection, which received a President of Israel Award and other prizes. Her poems have been set to music by multi-hit composer, Gidi Koren. In addition to the English libretto for composer Matti Kovler's The Escape of Jonah, Rebibo also collaborated with Kovler to write the libretto for Here Comes Messiah!, performed at Carnegie Hall in 2009 and at Boston’s Jordan Hall in 2010.