Zohra El Fassia: A Moroccan Jewish Singer’s Lost Fame in Israel

Widely regarded as the founder of Mizrahi poetry in Israel, Erez (originally Ya’ish) Bitton was born in Oman, Algeria. In 1948, Bitton’s family immigrated to Israel. At the age of ten, while playing with a friend, he picked up a stray grenade and lost his left hand and his eyesight. For the rest of his childhood, he attended the Jewish Institute for the Blind in Jerusalem, where he was given the Hebrew name Erez to replace his original Arabic name. He went on to attend the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he received a bachelor’s degree in social work, and Bar Ilan University, where he earned a master’s degree in psychology. Bitton was introduced to the work of Chaim Nahman Bialik in school but found his own poetic voice writing about the struggles of Mizrahi immigrants to Israel, especially the indignities they faced in their encounters with the Ashkenazic elite. He was the first Israeli poet to incorporate Judeo-Arabic into his poems. Bitton’s poetry collections include A Moroccan Gift (1976), The Book of Mint (1979), and The House of Pianos (2015). He received numerous awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize (1988) and the Bialik Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2014), and was the first Mizrahi to receive the Israel Prize for Literature (2015). Bitton founded and is editor of Apiryon, a literary journal dedicated to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern culture.