Reuven Ben-Yosef ( he, ראובן בן יוסף; 1937–2001) was an Israeli poet.

Biography

Ben-Yosef was born Robert Eliot Reiss, the son of Joseph and Cecilia Reiss, in New York City on May 31, 1937. His childhood was spent in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, where he attended P.S. 187 and later, The High School of Music & Art, where he became a professional

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

musician. He went on to complete his secondary education at Westwood High School in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

and attended

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

before serving in the U.S. Army in

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, Germany.Weingrad, Michael
''Letters to America: Selected Poems of Reuven Ben-Yosef''
p. 4. Syracuse University Press, 2015. . Accessed June 5, 2016. "Robert grew up in Manhattan, attending P.S. 187 and the High School of Music and Art before the family moved to New Jersey where he excelled as a student-athlete at Westwood High School in Bergen County." During 1957–59 he published poetry in American literary magazines and ''

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''. Before he left America to emigrate to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

he published his first book of poetry, the last he wrote in English, The Endless Seed. During the

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...

he was with the first military units to launch the counter-offensive in the southern sector of the

Golan Heights The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between di ...

and was on front-line duty for 145 days. In the summer of 1976 he moved to

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. He supported his family by translating and teaching creative writing to high-school students. When the Lebanon War broke out in 1982, he was again called to duty and sent to the front for 41 days. In 1996 he started a small publishing house called Sifre Bitzaron. He died of lung cancer on March 9, 2001. He left his brother

James Reiss James Reiss ( ; July 11, 1941 – December 2, 2016) was an American poet and novelist. Biography Reiss grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the ...

, his sister Lucinda Luvaas, his wife, Yehudit, three children and seven grandchildren. He wrote 19 books of

Hebrew poetry Hebrew poetry is poetry written in the Hebrew language. It encompasses such things as: * Biblical poetry, the poetry found in the poetic books of the Hebrew Bible * Piyyut, religious Jewish liturgical poetry in Hebrew or Aramaic * Medieval Hebrew ...

, two novels, two books of essays, and a writer's diary. After his death, his wife published a book, ''In Memory of Reuven Ben-Yosef'', which included critical articles by his colleagues (2002). In 2015 Syracuse University Press published ''Letters to America: Selected Poems of Reuven Ben-Yosef'', edited and translated by

Michael Weingrad Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...

Reviews

"Reuven Ben-Yosef left English and America behind to remake himself as a Hebrew poet in Israel. Now Michael Weingrad has returned him to us, in an English translation that captures the passion, pride, and angry beauty of his verse. Ben-Yosef's meditations on Jewish life in Israel and America—an opposition that split his own family—offer a powerful and unfashionable, counterpoint to the American Jewish literature that was produced to such acclaim during his lifetime. He offers a unique and challenging response to the question of what it means to be a Jewish poet."—Adam Kirsch, senior editor, ''The New Republic'' "Michael Weingrad's ''Letters to America'' offers readers an exceptionally thoughtful introduction to the work of a complicated man. Reuven Ben-Yosef was an American and an Israeli, a soldier and a poet, a utopian and a skeptic, and Weingrad's sensitive essay and his intelligent translations included in the volume make the man and his work come alive."—Adam Rovner, author of ''In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands before Israel''

Awards

* Twice awarded The Jewish Book Council of America (1969, 1975) * Moznaim Prize (1978) * N.Y.U. Neuman Prize (1979) * Peter Shiprert Prize (1982) * Bar-Ilan University Prize (1986) * Keren Hayasod Prize (1990) * Prime Minister Levi Eshcol Prize (1996–97)

Poems, stories, essays in periodicals

Molad, Moznaim, Amot, Apirion, 77, Bitzaron, Mibifnim, Maariv, Yediot, Haaretz, Davar, Al-Hamishmar, Ariel, Nativ, Psifas, Afikim and others and in the United States literary magazines such as Midstream, which recently published an article by the poet Esther Cameron and some of his poems translated into English.

References

External links

*http://www.ithl.org.il/author_info.asp?id=52 Poems and Articles translated into: English, French, Spanish, Italian,

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, Hungarian, and German. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ben-Yosef, Reuven 1937 births 2001 deaths Deaths from lung cancer in Israel Jewish American poets American emigrants to Israel Jewish Israeli writers Israeli male poets Oberlin College alumni 20th-century Israeli poets People from Westwood, New Jersey The High School of Music & Art alumni Westwood Regional High School alumni Burials at Har HaMenuchot