Helen Bar-Lev

Helen Bar-Lev was born in New York City in 1942. She has lived in Israel for 36 years. She holds a degree in Anthropology from California State University, Northridge, 1972. Since 1976 Helen has devoted herself to art: painting, teaching and writing poetry. From 1989 until 2001 she was a member of the Safad Artists’ Colony in the Upper Galilee where she had her own gallery. In January 2007 she and Johnmichael Simon moved to Metulla, the northernmost town in Israel.

To date Bar-Lev has participated in 80 exhibitions, including 30 one-person shows. She was the curator of the widely acclaimed Homage to Yosef Hirsch exhibitions (appearing in 3 venues) in 2002 and 2003 in which 53 of Hirsch's former students participated. Her poems and paintings have appeared in many online journals such as The Other Voices International Project; The Coffee Press Journal; Boheme Magazine; The Poetry Bridge; Sketchbook; River Bones Press; The Hypertexts; Palabras-Press; Poetry Super Highway, etc., and also print anthologies including Meeting of the Minds Journa;, Voices Israel Anthologies; Manifold Magazine of New Poetry (U.K.); Lucidity Poetry Journal, and Across The Long Bridge and Sailing in the Mist of Time, both anthologies of Award-Winning Poetry; Harvest International; Poesy first international issue; For Loving Precious Beast, An Anthology of Poetry edited by Yolanda Coulaz; Ibbetson Street 21; The Rogue Scholars, June 2007.

A book entitled CYCLAMENS AND SWORDS with poems of Israel by Helen and Johnmichael Simon has been published by Ibbetson Press of Boston, Mass. and may be ordered from the authors hbarlev@netvision.net.il. It is also available via Lulu. Her watercolour paintings and sketches are featured throughout the book.

Helen is a member of Voices Israel English Poetry Society and The Israel Artists’ and Sculptors’ Association, of the Canadian Federation of Poets and Canadian Poetry Association. She is the global correspondent in Israel for the Poetry Bridge and Editor-in-Chief of the Voices Israel annual Anthology.