R. Israel Najara (Safed c.1550 – Gaza c.1628) was the founder of a new school of poetry in the East after the Expulsion from Spain. As in most new beginnings, tradition and innovation are intertwined in his poetry. This article examines the extent to which Najara was faithful to the tradition of Spanish Hebrew poetry, which he knew so well and cherished, primarily with respect to the structure of his poems. A re-examination of ‘Zemirot Yisrael’ and ‘Sheerit Yisrael’, Najara’s two major poetic collections, suggests that, contrary to the general consensus in research, including that of the present author, it seems that Najara consciously and deliberately deviated from the canonical structures of Spanish poems, at times only slightly but at others much more radically. This tendency was further amplified in his later poems. Short selections from his poems illustrate this trend.