Nili Scharf Gold is an impressive scholar, and her reading of Amichai’s poems is enormously valuable. ... There is genuinely new and useful material is this book. ... He was always Israel’s best ambassador, whether on a public stage or in a social gathering, and that is the memory that will endure. But Nili Scharf Gold has given us fresh look and an important book. Anyone interested in Amichai will be grateful for it.
Nili Gold
Nili Gold is a Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. She published her third book, Haifa: City of Steps (University Press of New England) in the fall of 2017 and Haifa my Love, an original Hebrew version of the book in late 2018. It weaves together the architecture, cultural history and literature of the city, Gold’s hometown. In 2019, she lectured internationally on the book and its heroine – Haifa – and in the spring of that year, she taught a course on the city and led her entire class through Haifa as part of Penn’s Global Seminar program. Her book Yehuda Amichai: The Making of Israel’s National Poet (UPNE, 2008), which is her second book on the poet, was translated into Hebrew and published in Israel in 2019.
Professor Gold served as NELC’s Undergraduate Chair in the AY 2019-2020. Professor Gold was the cofounder, with Nicola Gentili (CIMS), of the Middle East Film Festival at Penn. Since its founding in 2010, she has continuously served on its committee and played a leading role in its development. Professor Gold has recently published several book chapters and articles (in Hebrew and in English), including a chapter on the poet Dahlia Ravikovitch and another on Amichai. She has a chapter forthcoming on the Israeli poet and author Benyamin Shvili, and another about Israeli texts on separation.
