A book of almost 400 pages is being prepared in Haifa.

That sentence does not sound particularly dramatic. There are no missiles in it, no diplomatic scandal, no emergency statement from Jerusalem or Kyiv.

And perhaps that is exactly why this story matters.

The independent Haifa-based publishing house Pardes is preparing a major anthology of contemporary Ukrainian poetry in Hebrew. It is expected to include works by 50 poets from several generations, from Emma Andijewska to some of Ukraine’s youngest contemporary voices.

But the number 50 is not the most interesting number in this story.

The more important one is five.

The anthology presents Ukrainian poetry originally written in five languages of Ukraine: Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar, Romani, Rumeika and Urum. The last two belong to the linguistic heritage of the Greeks of Ukraine’s Azov region — communities that most Israelis have probably never encountered in discussions about Ukraine.

This already makes the book something more than another collection of translated poems.

It presents a Ukraine that barely fits into the simplified image through which the country is usually seen abroad.

Alex Averbuch, the anthology’s compiler and one of its translators, described the project in a sentence that deserves to be taken seriously:

“For me, this is more than a book. This is my Ukraine — polyphonic, alive, indestructible.”

“For me, this is more than a book. This is my Ukraine — polyphonic, alive, indestructible.”

He has also explained that from the beginning, it was important to him that Ukraine should be heard through many of its own languages.

That distinction matters.

For years, many Israeli conversations about Ukraine have been reduced to a very narrow set of subjects: Russia’s war, relations between Jerusalem and Kyiv, Uman, Jewish history, antisemitism, political controversies and, increasingly, questions of security cooperation.

All of these subjects are real.

But they are not the whole country.

Sometimes a poetry anthology can reveal what diplomatic statements cannot.

Ukraine is more multilingual than many Israelis imagine

When Israelis hear the phrase “language question in Ukraine,” many immediately think of Ukrainian and Russian.

That is understandable. It is also incomplete.

Crimean Tatar is the language of an indigenous people of Crimea who survived Stalin’s mass deportation in 1944, returned to their homeland and then, after Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, again found their language, institutions and identity under severe pressure.

Romani brings another history into the anthology. Ukraine’s Roma communities have their own dialects and literary voices. One of the poets represented in the project, Yanush Panchenko, is also an ethnographer and researcher of Romani language and culture.

Then there are Rumeika and Urum.

These languages belong to the historical world of the Greeks of the Azov region. Rumeika is related to Greek, while Urum is Turkic. They developed within communities that lived for generations in what is now southeastern Ukraine.

That geography has acquired another meaning since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Much of the Azov region became synonymous with destruction, occupation and displacement. Mariupol is no longer only a city on a map; it has become one of the defining symbols of this war.

So when poems from these linguistic........

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