Yakov Azriel was born in New York in 1950 as Gerald Rosenkrantz, received his B.A. in English summa cum laude at Brooklyn College 1971, moved to Israel, changed his name to Yakov Azriel, studied at Yeshivas in Jerusalem and Alon-Shwt, received a doctorate in Judaica concentrating on the stories of Rabbi Nachman of Braslav, and was awarded a fellowship from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture 2004-5 for his poetry, his international prizes including the 2004 Miriam Lindberg Poetry for Peace Prize. This is his fifth book of poetry.