‘BLESS EACH DAY THAT PASSES’: The search for religious faith in the poetry of Itamar Yaoz-Kest

In 1985, the Hungarian-born Israeli poet Itamar Yaoz-Kest (b. 1934) made a pilgrimage to Vac, Hungary, to visit the grave site of his traditional Jewish forebears, Rabbi David Judah Leib Silberstein and Rabbi Isaiah Silberstein.2 This pilgrimage provided the impetus for a signifi cant new thematic direction in Yaoz-Kest’s poetry, as well as for a transformation of his personal life. In the aftermath of this pilgrimage, Yaoz-Kest began an intensive exploration of religious themes in his poetry, while he increasingly took on the observance of traditional Jewish rituals.3