Balfour Medad Ḥakak, writer, poet, and editor, was born in Baghdad in 1948. Israel became his home in 1950. Fifteen years later he won the International Bible Contest. After receiving an M.A. in Bible Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1977), he began working in the Curriculum Department of the Ministry of Education and Culture. He edited numerous books and the teachers’ magazine Ḥinnukh ʿal ha-Pereq (Education in Action, 1986–99). Since 2005 he has been chair of the Hebrew Writers Association.
Ḥakak published his first poem, Be-Qarov (Soon), at age fifteen in Maʿarivla-No…