Literatureעדי קיסר

Adi Keissar

Adi Keissar is an Israeli poet and the founder of the Ars Poetica poetry project.

born 1980Founding Ars PoeticaThe poem I Am the MizrahiPoetry on Mizrahi identity

Born: 11 December 1980, Jerusalem
Occupation: poet, activist, writer
Education: Tel Aviv University, Open University of Israel

Adi Keissar was born in 1980 in Jerusalem

Keissar was born in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem on December 11, 1980. She is the third of four children in a family of Yemeni origin. Her father's family came to Israel from Sanaa in 1882.

During her army service she was an infantry instructor. She earned a bachelor's degree from the Open University in 2008 and an MFA in screenwriting from Tel Aviv University in 2010.

She worked as a culture reporter for a local Jerusalem paper and, from 2009, in Tel Aviv. She began writing poetry at 32. In January 2013 she founded Ars Poetica, poetry nights that became a monthly event and a stage for Mizrahi and other poets.

She published poetry collections in 2014, 2016 and 2018 and edited 2 Ars Poetica anthologies. From 2017 the Ministry of Education included her poems in the literature curriculum. She won the Bernstein Prize in 2015.