Yehuda Amichai ( he, יהודה עמיחי; born Ludwig Pfeuffer 3 May 1924 – 22 September 2000) was an Israeli poet and author, one of the first to write in
colloquial
Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conver ...
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
in modern times.
Amichai was awarded the 1957 Shlonsky Prize, the 1969
Brenner Prize, 1976
Bialik Prize, and 1982
Israel Prize
The Israel Prize ( he, פרס ישראל; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor.
History
The Israel Prize is awarded annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state cer ...
. He also won international poetry prizes, and was nominated several times for the
Nobel Prize in Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
.
Biography
Yehuda Amichai was born in
Würzburg
Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River.
Würzburg is ...
, Germany, to an
Orthodox Jewish
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...
family, and was raised speaking both Hebrew and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
. His German name was Ludwig Pfeuffer.
Amichai immigrated with his family at the age of eleven to
Petah Tikva
Petah Tikva ( he, פֶּתַח תִּקְוָה, , ), also known as ''Em HaMoshavot'' (), is a city in the Central District (Israel), Central District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv. It was founded in 1878, mainly by Haredi Judaism, Haredi Jews of ...
in
Mandate Palestine in 1935, moving to Jerusalem in 1936.
[Gallery of People, Biographies, Yehuda Amichai](_blank)
. Jewishagency.org (28 July 2008).[http://www.npr.org/transcripts/9699843 . Npr.org (22 April 2007).] He attended Ma'aleh, a religious high school in Jerusalem. He was a member of the
Palmach
The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Companies") was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach ...
, the strike force of the
Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
, the defense force of the Jewish community in
Mandate
Mandate most often refers to:
* League of Nations mandates, quasi-colonial territories established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919
* Mandate (politics), the power granted by an electorate
Mandate may also ...
Palestine. As a young man he volunteered and fought in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
as a soldier in the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
, and in the
Negev
The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...
on the southern front in the
1947–1949 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...
.
After discharge from the British Army in 1946, Amichai was a student at
David Yellin Teachers College
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
in Jerusalem, and became a teacher in Haifa. After the
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
, Amichai studied the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
and
Hebrew literature
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews. Hebrew literature was pro ...
at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
. Encouraged by one of his professors at Hebrew University, he published his first book of poetry, ''Now and in Other Days'', in 1955.
[Yehuda Amichai papers, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library](_blank)
. Library.yale.edu.
In 1956, Amichai served in the
Sinai War
The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
, and in 1973 he served in 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 ...
. Amichai published his first novel,
Not of This Time, Not of This Place', in 1963. It is about a young Israeli who was born in Germany; after World War II, and the
1947–1949 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...
, he visits his hometown in Germany and recalls his childhood, trying to make sense of the world that created the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. His second novel, ''Mi Yitneni Malon'', about an Israeli poet living in New York, was published in 1971 while Amichai was a visiting professor at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. He was a poet in residence at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
in 1987.
For many years he taught literature in an Israeli seminar for teachers, and at the Hebrew University to students from abroad.
[Religious metaphor and its denial in the poetry of Yehuda Amichai](_blank)
. Findarticles.com.
Amichai was invited in 1994 by Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin to read from his poems at the ceremony of the
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...
in
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
. "God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children" was one of the poems he read. This poem is inscribed on a wall in the
Rabin Museum in
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
. There are streets named for him in cities in Israel, and also one in Würzburg.
Amichai was married twice. He was first married to Tamar Horn, with whom he had one son, and then to Chana Sokolov; they had one son and one daughter. His two sons were Ron and David, and his daughter was Emmanuella.
Amichai died of cancer in 2000, at age 76.
Poetry
Amichai's poetry deals with issues of day-to-day life, and with philosophical issues of the meaning of life and death. His work is characterized by gentle
irony
Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique.
Irony can be categorized into ...
and original, often surprising imagery. Like many secular Israeli poets, he struggles with religious faith. His poems are full of references to God and the religious experience. He was described as a philosopher-poet in search of a post-
theological
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
humanism
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humani ...
.
Amichai has been credited with a "rare ability for transforming the personal, even private, love situation, with all its joys and agonies, into everybody's experience, making his own time and place general."
[Yehuda Amichai]
. Poetry Foundation.
Some of his imagery was accused of being sacrilegious. In his poem "And this is Your Glory" (''Vehi Tehilatekha''), for example, God is sprawled under the globe like a mechanic under a car, futilely trying to repair it. In the poem "Gods Change, Prayers Stay the Same" (''Elim Mithalfim, ha-Tfillot Nisharot la-Ad''), God is a portrayed as a tour guide or magician.
Many of Amichai's poems were set to music in Israel and in other countries. Among them:
the poem ''Memorial Day for the War Dead'' was set to music for solo voices, chorus and orchestra in
Mohammed Fairouz
Mohammed Fairouz (born November 1, 1985) is an American composer.
He is one of the most frequently performed composers of his generation and has been described by Daniel J. Wakin of ''The New York Times'' as an "important new artistic voice".
Fa ...
's Third Symphony.
[Moore, Thomas (12 September 2010)]
Mohammed Fairouz: An Interview
, ''Opera Today''. Retrieved 19 April 2011
Other poems were set by the composers
Elizabeth Alexander ("Even a fist was once an open palm and fingers"),
David Froom
David Froom (December 14, 1951 – June 19, 2022) was an American composer and college professor. Froom taught at the University of Utah, the Peabody Institute, and the University of Maryland, College Park, and he was on the faculty at St. Mary's ...
,
Matthias Pintscher, Jan Dušek,
Benjamin Wallfisch
Benjamin Mark Lasker Wallfisch (born 7 August 1979) is a British composer, conductor, orchestrator, and producer of film scores. Since the mid-2000s, he has worked on over 75 feature films, including composing original scores for '' Blade Ru ...
, Ayelet Rose Gottlieb,
Maya Beiser,
Elizabeth Swados,
Daniel Asia
Daniel Asia (born June 27, 1953) is an American composer. He was born in Seattle, Washington, in the United States of America.
Biography
He received a B.A. degree from Hampshire College and a M.M. from the Yale School of Music. His major teacher ...
and others.
Language and poetic style
In an interview published in the ''
American Poetry Review
''The American Poetry Review'' (''APR'') is an American poetry magazine printed every other month on tabloid-sized newsprint. It was founded in 1972 by Stephen Berg and Stephen Parker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The magazine's editor is Elizab ...
'', Amichai spoke about his command of Hebrew:
I grew up in a very religious household ... So the prayers, the language of prayer itself became a kind of natural language for me ... I don't try—like sometimes poets do—to 'enrich' poetry by getting more cultural material or more ethnic material into it. It comes very naturally.
Robert Alter
Robert Bernard Alter (born 1935) is an American professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967. He published his translation of the Hebrew Bible in 2018.
Biography
Rober ...
describes Amichai's poetry as a "play of sound". He "builds a strong momentum that moves in free association from word to word, the sounds virtually generating the words that follow in the
syntactic
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), ...
chain through
phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
kinship".
Amichai's work was popular in English translation, but admirers of his poetry in the original Hebrew claim his innovative use of the language is lost in translation. Subtle layers of meaning achieved using an ancient word rather than its modern synonym to impart a biblical connotation cannot always be conveyed. In Amichai's love poem ''In the Middle of This Century'', for instance, the English translation reads: "the linsey-woolsey of our being together". The Hebrew term, ''
shaatnez
''Shatnez'' (or ''shaatnez'', ; he, ) is cloth containing both wool and linen (linsey-woolsey), which Jewish law, derived from the Torah, prohibits wearing. The relevant biblical verses ( and ) prohibit wearing wool and linen fabrics in one ...
'', refers to the biblical taboo on interweaving linen and wool, which a Hebrew reader would grasp as an image of forbidden union.
Literary work
Amichai traced his beginnings as a poetry lover to when he was stationed with the British army in Egypt. There he happened to find an anthology of modern British poetry, and the works of Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden. That book inspired his first thoughts about becoming a writer.
Literary scholar Boaz Arpaly wrote about the influence of biography on Amichai's poetry: "Literary criticism made the determination long ago that despite the autobiographical character of Amichai's poetry, the individual depicted in it is the typical Israeli everyman, and even in a wider sense, the individual as an individual of the twentieth century (a poetics that interweaves the private with the typically generic) ... Amichai routinely conflates biographical details from different times into one poetic framework, and exploits drafts and poetic ideas that were recorded in different periods, for a poem that would be written years later."
[Boaz Arpaly, "Yehuda Amichai- The Making of Israel's National Poet," '' Shofar'', winter 2010 vol.28 No.2] "Almost every poem by Amichai is a statement about the general human condition and Amichai, in a certain sense, is always a philosophical poet."
He changed his name to Yehuda Amichai ("my people lives") around 1946. In her biography of Amichai,
[Nili Scharf Gold: ''Yehuda Amichai, The Making of Israel’s National Poet'', Brandeis University Press](_blank)
. Upne.com. literary critic
Nili Scharf Gold writes that the idea for the name change, as well as the name "Amichai", came from his girlfriend, Ruth Herrmann, who later moved to the United States and married Eric Zielenziger.
[Feinstein, Elain]
Nili Scharf Gold: ''Yehuda Amichai, The Making of Israel’s National Poet'
. ''Jewish Quarterly''. Contrary to Gold's claim, Amichai said in an interview that it was his idea to choose the name Amichai: "it was common at that time to change (foreign) names into Hebrew names ... 'Amichai' was a right name, because it was Socialist, Zionist and optimistic."
[Dan Omer: In This Burning Country, An Interview with Amichai, Proza 1978]
Gold also believes that a childhood trauma in Germany affected Amichai's later poetry. She claims in her book that Amichai had an argument with a childhood friend, Ruth Hanover, which led to her cycling home angrily. Ruth was caught in a traffic accident, as a result of which she had to have a leg amputated, and Gold claims that Amichai felt guilt and responsibility.
[ Ruth later was murdered in the ]Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. Amichai occasionally referred to her in his poems as "Little Ruth".[Amichai Yehuda, Working Journal, 11.12. 1990, Beinecke Library, Yale University, Gen.Mss 572/]
In an interview Amichai said: "Little Ruth is my Anne Frank". "I found out that she (Little Ruth) was in the last transport in 1944. This knowledge goes with me all the time, not because of guilt." "If there is any guilty feeling it's like the guilt that soldiers feel when they survive the battle while their friends were killed."
Robert Alter wrote about Gold's contention: "Again and again Gold asks why Amichai did not represent his German childhood in his poetry, except fragmentarily and obliquely. The inconvenient fact that his major novel, ''Not of This time, Not of This Place'', devotes elaborate attention to Würzburg (which is given the fictional name Weinburg) is not allowed to trouble Gold's thesis of suppression, because the book is fiction, not poetry, and hence is thought somehow to belong to a different category in regard to the writer's relation to his early years. But Gold's notion of Amichai's 'poetics of camouflage' rests on an entirely unexamined assumptionthat it is the task of the poet to represent his life directly and in full ..." However, Gold argued that Amichai only wrote extensively about Würzburg in his novel because it was not his primary genre and therefore would be read by fewer people. Moreover, ''Not of This Time, Not of This Place'' does not hide the fact that it is based on Amichai's autobiography, including both his trip to his former hometown (and, explicitly, his search for closure about Little Ruth) and his affair with an American woman.
Contrary to Gold's argument, Amichi wrote many plays and radio plays, a book of short stories, and a second novel, and he never said or wrote in any interview that he hoped that fewer people would read his prose.
Boaz Arpaly wrote: "Amichai did not hide in his poetry the fact that he was an immigrant and a son of immigrants, but he chose to tell the story of his childhood in his hometown, in his novel ''Not of This Time, Not of This Place'', and like any other writer, he decided which material of his life will become material to his poetry..."
:Did Amichai want to become a national poet? ... his poetry embodied a silent but piercing revolution against the social and political institutions that enslave the life and happiness of the individual for their need – He should bother so much to build for himself the mythology of a national poet? All the things that Gold thinks he was hiding were not in any contrast to the unique "nationality" embodied in his poetry. I did not find in Gold's book an explanation to the concept 'national poet' but in the first place, this concept appears in her book she is pointing to my article (1997) that says: "of all the poets who began to at the time of Amichai, or in later years, since Alterman there was not a poet more popular than Amichai. In this he is unique. He is probably the only canonic poet read by so many, also by people that do not belong to the Literary Community. In this matter he has no rivals. From this aspect, at least, he may be considered a national poet, a title that does not suit him from any other point of view ..." Gold's use of that title is not clear and not responsible.
Critical acclaim
Amichai's poetry in English appeared in the first issue of ''Modern Poetry in Translation'', edited by Daniel Weissbort and Ted Hughes
Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...
in 1965. In 1966 he appeared at the Spoleto
Spoleto (, also , , ; la, Spoletum) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.
History
Spolet ...
poetry festival with Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
, W.H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
, Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
and others. In 1968, he appeared at the London Poetry Festival. His first book in English, ''Selected Poems'' (1968), was translated by Assia Guttman (Hughes' lover and mother to his daughter Shura). Referring to him as "the great Israeli poet", Jonathan Wilson wrote in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' that he is, "one of very few contemporary poets to have reached a broad cross-section without compromising his art. He was loved by his readers worldwide."
In the '' Times Literary Supplement'', Ted Hughes wrote: "I've become more than ever convinced that Amichai is one of the biggest, most essential, most durable poetic voices of this past century – one of the most intimate, alive and human, wise, humorous, true, loving, inwardly free and resourceful, at home in every human situation. One of the real treasures."
In '' The American Poetry Review'', May–June 2016, David Biespiel wrote: "He translates the hardness of existence into new tenderness; tenderness into spiritual wonder that is meant to quiet outrage; and outrage into a mixture of worry and love and warmth ... He is one of the great joyful lamenters of all time, endlessly documenting his anguish, throbbing pains, mistaken dreams, shortages of faith, abundances of ecstatic loves, and humiliations. And, like everyone else, he wants everything both ways. In particular, he wants to be a lover and a loner, a guy in the street and an intellectual, believer and infidel, while insisting that all manifestations of war against the human spirit be mercilessly squashed."
Anthony Hecht said in 2000 that ''Open Closed Open'' "is as deeply spiritual a poem as any I have read in modern times, not excluding Eliot's Four Quartets, or anything to be found in the works of professional religionists. It is an incomparable triumph. Be immediately assured that this does not mean devoid of humor, or without a rich sense of comedy.". And: "not only superb, but would, all by itself, have merited a Nobel Prize."
Author Nicole Krauss has said that she was affected by Amichai from a young age.
Amichai's poetry has been translated into 40 languages.
Awards and honours
* 1957 – Shlonsky Prize
* 1969 – Brenner Prize[
* 1976 – Bialik Prize for literature (co-recipient with essayist ]Yeshurun Keshet
Yeshurun Keshet (; 29 November 1893 – 22 February 1977), born Ya'akov Yehoshua Koplewitz, was an Israeli poet, essayist, translator and literary critic.
Biography
Keshet was born in Mińsk Mazowiecki, Congress Poland, and sent by his parents ...
)
* 1981 – Würzburg's Prize for Culture (Germany)[
* 1982 – ]Israel Prize
The Israel Prize ( he, פרס ישראל; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor.
History
The Israel Prize is awarded annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state cer ...
for Hebrew poetry. The prize citation reads, in part: "Through his synthesis of the poetic with the everyday, Yehuda Amichai effected a revolutionary change in both the subject matter and the language of poetry."[Yehuda Amichai (1924–2000)](_blank)
(.doc file)
* 1986 – Agnon Prize[
* 1994 – Malraux Prize: International Book Fair (France)][
* 1994 – Literary Lion Award (New York)][
* 1995 – ]Macedonia
Macedonia most commonly refers to:
* North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia
* Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity
* Macedonia (Greece), a traditional geographic reg ...
's Golden Wreath Award: International Poetry Festival[
* 1996 – Norwegian ]Bjornson Bjørnson is a Norwegian surname with the literal meaning "Son of Bjørn". Bjornson, Bjørnson, Bjørnsen, Björnsson and variations can refer to the following people:
;
;Icelanders
* Ármann Smári Björnsson (born 1981), Icelandic footballer
*Bj ...
Poetry Award[
Amichai received an Honor Citation from ]Assiut University Assiut University is a university located in Assiut, Egypt. It was established in October 1957 as the first university in Upper Egypt.
Statistics
*Faculty members: 2,442
*Assistant lecturers and demonstrators: 1,432
*Administrative staff: 11,686 ...
, Egypt, and numerous honorary doctorates. He became an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1986), and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
(1991). His work is included in the "100 Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature" (2001), and in international anthologies ''Poems for the Millennium'' by J. Rothenberg and P. Joris, and ''100 Great Poems of the 20th Century'' by Mark Strand. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize several times, but never won. Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...
English professor Jonathan Wilson wrote, "He should have won the Nobel Prize in any of the last 20 years, but he knew that as far as the Scandinavian judges were concerned, and whatever his personal politics, which were indubitably on the dovish side, he came from the wrong side of the stockade."[The God of Small Things](_blank)
, Jonathan Wilson, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', 10 December 2000
Amichai Archive
Amichai sold his archive for over $200,000 to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. The archive contains 1,500 letters received from the early 1960s to the early 1990s from dozens of Israeli writers, poets, intellectuals and politicians. Overseas correspondence includes letters from Ted Hughes
Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...
, Arthur Miller, Erica Jong
Erica Jong (née Mann; born March 26, 1942) is an American novelist, satirist, and poet, known particularly for her 1973 novel ''Fear of Flying''. The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured pro ...
, Paul Celan
Paul Celan (; ; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a Romanian-born German-language poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Cernăuți (German: Czernowitz), in the then Kingdom of Romania (now Chernivtsi, U ...
, and many others. The archive also includes dozens of unpublished poems, stories and plays; 50 notebooks and notepads with 1,500 pages of notes, poems, thoughts and drafts from the 1950s onward; and the poet's diaries, which he kept for 40 years. According to Moshe Mossek, former head of the Israel State Archive, these materials offer priceless data about Amichai's life and work.
Works in other languages
English
* ''The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai''. Yehuda Amichai; Edited by Robert Alter. New York: FSG, 2015.
* ''A Life of Poetry, 1948–1994''. Selected and translated by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
* ''Amen''. Translated by the author and Ted Hughes. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
* ''Even a Fist Was Once an Open Palm with Fingers: Recent Poems''. Selected and translated by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav. New York: HarperPerennial, 1991.
* ''Exile at Home''. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.
* ''Great Tranquility: Questions and Answers''. Translated by Glenda Abramson and Tudor Parfitt. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
* ''Killing Him: A Radio Play''. Translated by Adam Seelig and Hadar Makov-Hasson. Chicago: Poetry Magazine, July–August 2008.
* ''Love Poems: A Bilingual Edition''. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.
* ''Not of this Time, Not of this Place.'' Translated by Shlomo Katz. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.
* ''On New Year's Day, Next to a House Being Built: A Poem''. Knotting ngland Sceptre Press, 1979.
* ''Open Closed Open: Poems''. Translated by Chana Bloch
Chana Bloch (March 15, 1940 – May 19, 2017) was an American poet, translator, and scholar. She was a professor emerita of English at Mills College in Oakland, California.
Life and work
Born as Florence Ina Faerstein in the Bronx, New York, sh ...
and Chana Kronfeld. New York: Harcourt, 2000. (Shortlisted for the 2001 International Griffin Poetry Prize
The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin.
Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...
)
* ''Poems of Jerusalem: A Bilingual Edition''. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
* ''Selected Poems''. Translated by Assia Gutmann. London: Cape Goliard Press, 1968.
* ''Selected Poems''. Translated by Assia Gutmann and Harold Schimmel with the collaboration of Ted Hughes. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971.
* ''Selected Poems''. Edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. London: Faber & Faber, 2000.
* ''Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai''. Edited and translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Newly revised and expanded edition: Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
* ''Songs of Jerusalem and Myself''. Translated by Harold Schimmel. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
* ''Time''. Translated by the author with Ted Hughes. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
* ''Travels''. Translated by Ruth Nevo. Toronto: Exile Editions, 1986.
* ''Travels of a Latter-Day Benjamin of Tudela''. Translated by Ruth Nevo. Missouri: Webster Review, 1977.
* ''The World Is a Room and Other Stories''. Translated by Elinor Grumet. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1984.
* ''Jerusalem 1967–1990'', London, poem by Yehuda Amichai, collaboration with artist Maty Grunberg
Maty Grunberg (Hebrew מתי גרינברג) born 1943, is an Israeli sculptor and known also for his Artist Books.
Biography
Maty Grunberg was born in Skopje, Macedonia, the former Yugoslavia. In the year 1948 M.G. immigrated to Israel with hi ...
, portfolio of 56 woodcuts, limited edition.
* ''The Amichai Windows''. Limited edition artist book of 18 Amichai poems letterpressed with photo collages. Translation by artist Rick Black. Turtle Light Press, 2017.
Nepali
Many of Amichai's poems have been translated into Nepali
Nepali or Nepalese may refer to :
Concerning Nepal
* Anything of, from, or related to Nepal
* Nepali people, citizens of Nepal
* Nepali language, an Indo-Aryan language found in Nepal, the current official national language and a language spoken ...
by Suman Pokhrel
Suman Pokhrel ( ne, सुमन पोखरेल; born on September 21, 1967) is a Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist. Universities in Nepal and India have included his poetry in their syllabus.
Suman Pokhrel is the s ...
, and some are collected in an anthology titled ''Manpareka Kehi Kavita''. His poems included in this anthology are, "''My Father''" as "''MERA BAA''," "''Forgetting Something''" as "''BIRSANU''," "''Do not Accept''" as "''SWEEKAR NAGARA''," and "''A Jewish Cemetery in Germany''" as "''JARMANIKO YAHUDI CHIHANGHRI''" .
Burmese
A total of 37 poems of Yehuda Amichai have been translated into Burmese and published in Yangon, Myanmar in March 2018. Burmese poet and translator, Myo Tayzar Maung, translated and the book has been published by the Eras Publishing House.
Russian
* ''Elohim Merahem Al Yaldei Ha'Gan''. Selected and translated by Alexander Volovik. Bilingual edition. Shoken, 1991.
See also
* List of Israel Prize recipients
This is a complete list of recipients of the Israel Prize from the inception of the Prize in 1953 through to 2022.
List
For each year, the recipients are, in most instances, listed in the order in which they appear on the official Israel Prize ...
* Hebrew Literature
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews. Hebrew literature was pro ...
References
Further reading
* Robert Alter
Robert Bernard Alter (born 1935) is an American professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967. He published his translation of the Hebrew Bible in 2018.
Biography
Rober ...
: Only a Man
'">br>Only a Man
' The New Republic, 31 Dec 200
*Robert Alter:Israel's Master Poet, The New York Times Magazine,8 June 1986
*Rick Black
Through Amichai's Window
Tikkun magazine, November 2015
* Adam Seelig
Adam Seelig (born 1975) is a Canadian and American poet, playwright, director, composer and Artistic Director of One Little Goat Theatre Company in Toronto.
Theatre
Seelig founded One Little Goat Theatre Company in New York City and Toron ...
: ''Introduction to "Killing Him," a radio play by Yehuda Amichai'', Poetry Magazine, July–August 200
* Boas Arpali: ''"The Flowers and the Urn" Amichai's Poetry – Structure, Meaning, Poetics'', Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1986
*Edward Hirsch: A Language Torn From Sleep, The New York Times Book Review, 3 August 1986
* Boaz Arpali
Boaz (; Hebrew: בֹּעַז ''Bōʿaz''; ) is a biblical figure appearing in the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible and in the genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament and also the name of a pillar in the portico of the historic Temple in Jerusa ...
: ''Patuach, Patuach'', Haaretz 16 Jan 200
* Benjamin Balint
"Israel's Laureate: The Sacred and Secular Vision of Yehuda Amichai
" in the Weekly Standard, 18 January 2016.
* Miriam Neiger, ''"Half a saint": Eschatology, Vision and Salvation in the Poetry of Yehuda Amichai'', M.A. Thesis (in Hebrew), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Department of Hebrew Literature.
* Nili Scharf Gold: ''Yehuda Amichai: The Making of Israel's National Poet'', Brandeis University Press, 2008.
* Nili Scharf Gold:"Amichai's Now and in Other Days and Open Closed Open: A Poetic Dialogue," in Festschrift in Honor of Arnold Band, eds. William Cutter and David C. Jacobson, (Providence: Brown University Judaic Studies), 465-477, 2002.
* Nili Scharf Gold: Not like a cypress: transformations of images and structures in the poetry of Yehuda Amichai, Schocken 1994.
* Nili Scharf Gold:"A Burning Bush or a Fire of Thorns: Toward a Revisionary Reading of Amichai's Poetry," in Prooftexts, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press) Vol. 14, 49-69, 1994.
* Boaz Arpaly
"The making of Israel National Poet
" '' Shofar'', winter 2010, Vol. 28 N0 2 pp-213
* Essi Lapon-Kandeslshein: ''To Commemorate the 70th Birthday of Yehuda Amichai: A Bibliography of His Work in Translation'', Ramat Gan (Israel): Institute of the Translation of Hebrew Literature, 1994
* Mel Gussow :Yehuda Amichai, Poet who turned Israel experience into verse, The New York Times',23 September 2000
*Sephen Kessler: Theology for Atheists Yehuda Amichai's Poetry of Paradox' Express Books, September 2000
*Charles M. Sennot :Poet Walks Jerusalem's Little Corners of Hope, The Boston Globe 9.5.2000
*Robyn Sara:'Look to Amichai for Poetry that Endures, The Gazette', Montreal, 28 October 2000
* Anthony Hecht: Sentenced To Reality, the New York Review of Books, 2 November 2000
*Irreverent Israeli Poet with a Comic Eye For Detail, The Irish Times, 7 October 2000
* Christian Leo
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...
: "''Wischen Erinnern und Vergessen''" – Jehuda Amichais Roman 'Nicht von jetzt' nicht von hier" im philosophichen und literarischen Kontexext" Konigshausen&Neumann Wurzburg 2004
* Dan Miron
Dan Miron ( he, דן מירון, born 1934) is an Israeli-born American literary critic and author.
An expert on modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature, Miron is a Professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is currently the Leonar ...
: ''Yehuda Amichai-A Revolutionary With a Father'', Haaretz, 3, 12, 14, October 2005
* Matt Nesvisky:
Letters I wrote to you
', The Jerusalem Report
''The Jerusalem Report'' is a fortnightly print and online news magazine that covers political, security, economic, religious and cultural issues in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
Founded as an independent weekly publication in 199 ...
, 8 December 2008
* Yehudit Tzvik:''Yehuda Amichai: A Selection of critical essays on his writing,'' Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1988
* Lawrence Joseph (Spring 1992).
Yehuda Amichai, The Art of Poetry No. 44
" Paris Review.
* '' The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself'', 2003,
* Chana Kronfeld
Chana, chhana, or chaná may refer to :
Food
* Chickpea, known in South Asia as ''chana''
* Chhana, a type of curds from South Asia
Places
* Chana, Illinois, United States, an unincorporated community
* Chana District, Songkhla Province, ...
:
The Wisdom of Camouflage
Prooftexts 10, 1990 pp. 469–491
* Adam Kirsch:Opening Up the Great Human Emotions:A New Collection of Poetry from an Israeli Master of Metaphor:Forwards,5 May 2000
* Jonathan Wilson: The God of Small Things, New York Times Book Review,12.10.2000
Joshua Cohen; "The Poet Who Invented Himself," Forward.com 4 Sep 2008
* C.K.Williams: "We Cannot be foold, We can be fooled" The New Republic, 3 July 2000
* Hana Amichai
"Little Ruth, my Personal Anne Frank"
Haaretz, 22,10,2010
* Hana Amichai: "The leap between the yet and the not any more" Amichai and Paul Celan, Haaretz,6 April 2012 (Hebrew)
* John Felstiner, "Paul Celan and Yehuda Amichai: An Exchange between Two Great Poets," Midstream 53, no. 1 (Jan.–Feb. 2007)
* john Felstiner
Writing Zion
Paul Celan and Yehuda Amichai: An Exchange between Two Great Poets, The New Republic, 5 June 2006
* Chana Kronfeld- "The Wisdom of Camouflage" Prooftexts 10, 1990 pp. 469–491
* Chana Kronfeld : "Reading Amichai Reading," Judaism 45, no. 3 (1996): 311–2
* Na'ama Rokem:" German–Hebrew Encounters in the Poetry and Correspondence of Yehuda Amichai and Paul Celan," Prooftext Volume 30, Number 1, Winter 2010 E- Print
* Vered Shemtov, Between Perspectives of Space:
A Reading in Yehuda Amichai's "Jewish Travel" and "Israeli Travel"
, Jewish Social Studies 11.3 (2005) 141-161
* Naama Lansky : "A Poem of Protest " ; "Israel Hyom," 8 April 2011 pp ישראל היום," מוסף "ישראל שישבת," 41–38,"(in Hebrew)
Robert Alter, Amichai: The Poet at play
Jewish Review of Books, Vol 2 Nu 2 Summer 2011
*Chana Kronfeld : "The Full Severity of Compassion" Stanford University Press 2016
*Robert Alter;editor:" The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai" Farrar, Straus and Giroux New York 2016
*Elizabeth Lund : "The best poetry books for December" The Washington Post, 8 December 2015
*Rosie Scharp :"The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai " The New York Times, 24 January 2016
*MITCH GINSBURG :" Doors to Yehuda Amichai Unforgettable Poetry" The Times of Israel, 21 January 2016
*Shoshana Olidort ":Review: 'The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai," Chicago Tribune, 10 December 2015
*James Wood:" Like a Prayer: The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai " The New Yorker, 4 January 2016 issue
*Stephen Greenblatt ;"The Jewish Poet of Love" The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
, 14 January 2016 ISSUE
Ziva Shamir
"Conceit as a Cardinal Style-Marker in Yehuda Amichai's Poetry"
The Experienced Soul: Studies in Amichai (ed. Glenda Abramson), Westview Press, "Harper Collins Publishers", Oxford 1997
External links
Poetry Foundation bio
Academy of American Poets bio
The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature
*
''The Amichai Windows''
a blog about an artist book of Yehuda Amichai poems, the man and his work.
Digital Guide to The Amichai Windows
hosted by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Includes an introduction by Robert Alter and an essay by artist Rick Black.
luljeta lleshanaku on Amichai
Yehuda Amichai's poetry in English translation
at ''Poems Found in Translation''
Introduction to Amichai's poetry, in audio.
*
-luljeta-lleshanaku, 3Mmagazin
Reading of Yehuda Amichai's "I, May I Rest in Peace" by Chana Bloch
by Stephen Mitchell
at ''The Daily Telegraph''
* Yehuda Amichai Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
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