A perusal of the cover of "Pargod" by Aden Abitbol, reveals nothing about the identity of the poet.
A poem is printed on the back of the book, and on the inside it is written that Abitbol "was born in Jerusalem in 1992 and still lives there today with his wife and son."
The poems themselves teach about his special character and are evidenced by about a thousand biographies abbreviated in the back of books.
A search on the Internet reveals that Abitbol is a Sephardic ultra-orthodox avrach in a Lithuanian Ashkenazi yeshiva, who is also a poet and screenwriter.
The short sentence above apparently contains so many contradictions, which is also reflected in his poems.
The intermingling of the worlds is reflected in the two epigraphs chosen to open the book: a quote from "Mi Shiloh", the book of the Rebbe of Izbitza, and next to it a quote from a song by the singer and composer Aviv Gedge, former lead singer of the "Algiers" band, in his first book Abitbol calls him "the Rebbe of Algiers".
I have been able to do it.
"All winter I listened to Billy Eilish without understanding a word";
".................................................................................................
It is not a good idea that in his poems, in which lines like "I have to do so,"
Abitbul is part of a contemporary movement of poets who come from the ultra-Orthodox world and start writing and publishing lyrical poetry on new ultra-Orthodox stages and on old stages that are not distinctly ultra-Orthodox.
Thus, for example, some of Abitbol's poems were recently published both in a new ultra-Orthodox poetry magazine called "Migo" and in the magazine "Yahi", which was dedicated to ultra-Orthodox poetry even though it is not fundamentally ultra-Orthodox.
This new poetic movement is connected with a general cultural movement in the ultra-orthodox world, which allows itself, despite the halachic rigidity, to also appeal to the general public while maintaining the ultra-orthodox identity.
The cultural mix from which the poets come, and Abitbol among them, creates a new ultra-Orthodox poetic language that does not apologize or add footnotes as it combines in a mosaic Yiddish, Aramaic, biblical Hebrew and rabbinic expressions, but also everyday Hebrew, from the home and the street.
For the benefit of the readers.
The songs do not try to "make a tourist welcome", and to a large extent they appeal to an audience that is also between these worlds.
Thus, for example, in Abitbol's poem in which: "Under Notre Dame minus four degrees / The holy hunchback from the Dinkuta version / Asking for charity to be saved from death / In a foreign language" - "The holy hunchback, the holy hunchback from the version of the Dinkuta"
The intermingling of the worlds is not just a poetic symptom, and it bears witness to what is happening in ultra-Orthodox society invaded by "secular" influences.
Thus, the book also features Zvi, an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva who watches football matches from the English league, and to God, a guy who was proposed to her in a match gave her, of all the books in the world, Rachel's poems.
It is understood that the ultra-orthodox establishment still finds it difficult to accept this, and in one of the most touching poems included in the book, the poet faces the fear that his various and unacceptable occupations will have a negative effect on his son.
I have to do it. In you / shoot for every past: Abba a poet / Abba a film writer, Abba a city / at night, Abba Noham in the woods. / But I, a Torah student."
Eden Abitbol / Fargod, Tangier, 87 p.
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