The sounds of places where I have lived reverberate in my ears: the clattering of the subway “el” along Brooklyn streets; bolero tunes off Rincon’s surfing shores; rain in abundance falling on palm leaves and tin roofs in Limon; hockey skates cutting through the ice at Winnipeg Warriors’ games; galloping horses dashing across kibbutz fields in the Golan….

Joanne Jackson Yelenik moved to Israel in 2006, fulfilling a dream of hers during her doctoral studies in Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center in New York City, and her years living in Aguada, Puerto Rico and Bataan, Costa Rica while serving with the Peace Corps. For many subsequent years she taught history and literature in Washington, D.C.; she headed the Senior Studies Program at the Georgetown Day School. During that period, she devoted her writing to short stories, essays, and high school plays that she directed and in which, she occasionally performed.

She wrote the school’s original Holocaust Studies program and in the course’s pilot year she led her class of GDS graduating seniors to Munich, Dachau, and Berlin where they engaged in discussion groups with government officials and German high school students. Subsequently, the GDS students traveled to Prague to visit Jewish heritage sites there. They completed their travels with a visit to Israel where they met with high school students in Jerusalem.

At the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland her Holocaust programming included class reflections on the melodies of Shlomo Carlebach.

Closure to the year’s experiences and studies came with the giving of virtual gifts and blessings among students, and between teacher and students. Gifts and blessings ranged from treasures of the heart, honesty and smiles, to sparkling jewels, a ruby ring, an emerald broach; blessings for gardens to walk in, waves to surf upon, and mountains to climb.

Yelenik’s poems and stories have appeared in anthologies and journals. Her prose poem, A Chat, appeared in Unbroken Journal, issue #10. The MOON showcases two of her poems in the February, 2017 issue. She teaches in the fields of history and literature. A favorite writing spot is her garden, or a picnic table in the neighboring Judean Hills. Her debut novel, “Eucalyptus Leaves: Deliciously Asymmetrical in Israel,” will be launched in the spring.