Yona Wallach ( he, יונה וולך; June 10, 1944 – September 26, 1985) was an Israeli
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
. Her surname also appears as Volach. She is considered a revolutionary Israeli
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
and
post-modernist
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
.
Wallach was a promising young poet, though she neglected her talents for many years as she used drugs and explored the Jewish mysticism that influenced much of her work. She didn't receive critical acclaim for her work until the late 70s.
Wallach developed breast cancer in 1981 and refused treatment for many years. She died in 1985.
Biography
Early life
Yona Wallach was born on June 10, 1944 in
Kiryat Ono
Kiryat Ono ( he, קִרְיַת אוֹנוֹ) is a city in the Tel Aviv District of Israel. It is located east of Tel Aviv. In it had a population of .
Modern Kiryat Ono is not to be confused with the biblical Ono, which was located in the ar ...
to parents Michael and Esther Wallach.
The name Yona was given to her in honor of three dead relatives.
At the age of four, her father was brutally tortured and killed in the
1948 Arab-Israeli War
Events January
* January 1
** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated.
** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect.
** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...
.
Wallach and her older sister Nira were raised by their widowed mother on Michael Wallach Street in the town of Kiryat Ono — a town which her father founded near
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 ...
. As a young child Wallach did well in elementary school, but as she grew older she became more rebellious, dressing
androgynously in her dead father's clothes and having her first abortion at age sixteen.
She was expelled from high school after tenth grade,
[Lidovsky Cohen, Zafrira (2003). ''"Loosen the Fetters of Thy Tongue, Woman" The Poetry and Poetics of Yona Wallach''. Detroit: Hebrew Union College Press. p. 7. .] and then spent a short time at the
Avni Arts School.
Around the age of nineteen she left home for
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
. Although she never received formal higher education, she was very observant and an avid reader, claiming to have learned from the world around her. She began to associate with petty thieves and drug dealers, intrigued by their lifestyle and the ugly reality of the world.
[''The Seven Tapes - Poet Yona Wallach''. San Francisco, California, USA: Yair Qedar, 2012.]
Psychiatric hospitalization and sexuality
Wallach suffered from a few mental breakdowns, the first of which occurred in her late teens.
She claims to have freely admitted herself into a psychiatric hospital around the age of twenty to better understand the madness her friends were experiencing, but in reality she agreed to be admitted after developing impulses to harm her mother.
[Negev, Eilat (2003). ''Close Encounters with Twenty Israeli Writers''. London: Vallentine Mitchell. p. 123. .] At the mental institution she met a doctor who took advantage of her willingness to use drugs and treated her with
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
therapy, though he too was inexperienced with dosages and once almost killed her through an overdose.
She enjoyed using psychotics and described the hallucinations as having expanded her consciousness.
Her therapist at the institution acknowledged her deviant sexuality in his records, noting that she identifies as
homosexual
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
even though she still pursues relationships with men.
She was known for stealing the girlfriends of her male friends.
She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a second time when she was 24 years old, where she stayed for four and a half months.
Symptoms of a drug-induced psychotic break had been intensifying, and friends were concerned that she might be suicidal. She claims to have only felt safe and protected once her works had been published and her fame was secured.
Final years and death
After Wallach was released from her second visit to the mental institution, she went to stay with her mother back in Kiryat Ono.
Her mother suffered from
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...
and Wallach became her primary caregiver. She did not care much for her mother; her medical records suggest that Wallach was responsible for some of the bruising on her body.
[Negev, Eilat (2003). ''Close Encounters with Twenty Israeli Writers''. London: Vallentine Mitchell. p. 126. .] She lived off of her mother's financial support since she did not have a steady job. Wallach attempted suicide in 1974 but refused hospitalization.
[Negev, Eilat (2003). ''Close Encounters with Twenty Israeli Writers''. London: Vallentine Mitchell. p. 125. .]
Wallach began performing her poetry with a rock band she formed with two of her male musician friends.
They would not let her sing her poetry, only recite it, because she was so out of tune.
Wallach excited crowds with her provocative clothing and explicitly sexual poems.
In 1981, at the age of 36, Wallach found a lump in her breast and was diagnosed with
breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...
.
She refused treatment for two years, believing the same sort of spirit that drove her poetry would also aid in her recovery.
One morning she awoke with a pain in her chest and all of her bones aching, finally spurring her decision to seek treatment.
She met a doctor in Kiryat Ono who told her she had less than eight years to live. From this point on she continued treatment, soliciting friends to help administer her medicine. They described her as being very lonely during this time; her rough demeanor had been substituted for something gentler and more childlike.
She died on September 26, 1985.
Literary career
Wallach knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. When she was kicked out of school in the tenth grade, the headmistress cited Wallach as having neglected her studies in preference to doodling and writing poems.
At the age of eighteen she first attempted to be published by Eked publishing house and was rejected, likely because she did not permit any revisions.
She became a member of the "Tel Aviv Poets" group, which was influenced by
American Beat Poetry, with poets
Meir Weiseltier and
Yair Hurvitz
Yair Hurvitz ( he, יאיר הורביץ; 1941–1988), also known as Yair Horowitz, was an Israeli poet who began publishing poetry in the 1960s, he was a member of the "Tel Aviv Poets" group. His poems mark a return to the tradition of Haim ...
.
It is unknown at what age she wrote her first published poems. The first of her poems to be published, one without a title, was printed on January 3, 1964 in ''
Yediot Aharanot'' when she was nineteen.
[Lidovsky Cohen, Zafrira (2003). ''"Loosen the Fetters of Thy Tongue, Woman" The Poetry and Poetics of Yona Wallach''. Detroit: Hebrew Union College Press. p. 8. .] Hurvitz submitted the poem for her to the literary magazine. In the following months five more of her poems had been published in various magazines and periodicals, and her name was mentioned in ''
Ha-Boker'' as an "important young Israeli avant-garde poet."
She spent the next few years neglecting her writing to experiment with sex and drugs, which decidedly influenced much of her future poetry.
Wallach never left the country seeking intellectual inspiration like many of her literary counterparts. Instead, she surrounded herself with "societal misfits" and spent time exploring her inner self and
Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
— the ancient, mystical Jewish tradition of interpreting the Bible.
Though she was well known in literary circles, she received little critical acclaim until the mid 1970s.
[Lidovsky Cohen, Zafrira (2003). ''"Loosen the Fetters of Thy Tongue, Woman" The Poetry and Poetics of Yona Wallach''. Detroit: Hebrew Union College Press. p. 9. .] Her 1976 volume of poems, ''Shira'', received instant acclaim. She was unanimously accepted into the Tel-Aviv Foundation for Culture and Art and won three literary prizes between the summers of 1977 and 1978.
Wallach became an Israeli celebrity, with tabloids following her around and her work becoming more widely published. Her final collection, ''Mofa'', was published posthumously in 1985.
[Lidovsky Cohen, Zafrira (2003). ''"Loosen the Fetters of Thy Tongue, Woman" The Poetry and Poetics of Yona Wallach''. Detroit: Hebrew Union College Press. p. 10. .]
Books in Hebrew
*Things, Achshav, 1966
evarim*Two Gardens, Daga, 1969
hnei Ganim*Collected Poems, Siman Kriah, 1976
hirim*Wild Light, Echut, 1983
r Pere*Forms, Hakibbutz Hameuchad/Siman Kriah, 1985
zurot*Appearance, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1985
ofah*Selected Poems 1963–1985, Hakibbutz Hameuchad/Siman Kriah, 1992
Books in translation
*Selected Poems, English: New York, Sheep Meadow, 1997
*Wallach, Yona, and
Zisquit, Linda. ''Let the Words : Selected Poems / Yona Wallach ; Translated by Linda Stern Zisquit.'' Riverdale-on-Hudson, NY: Sheep Meadow Press, 2006.
*Individual poems have been published in: Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Yiddish.
Awards
* awarded by the Municipality of
Holon
Holon ( he, חוֹלוֹן ) is a city on the central coastal strip of Israel, south of Tel Aviv. Holon is part of the metropolitan Gush Dan area. In it had a population of . Holon has the second-largest industrial zone in Israel, after Haifa. ...
(1978)
See also
*
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 ...
*
Zelda (poet)
Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky ( he, זלדה שניאורסון-מישקובסקי; June 20, 1914 – April 30, 1984), widely known as Zelda, was an Israeli poet. She received three awards for her published works.
Biography
Zelda Schneurson (later M ...
*
Rachel (poet)
Rachel Bluwstein Sela (20 September (Julian calendar) 1890 – 16 April 1931) was a Hebrew-language poet who immigrated to Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1909.
She is known by her first name, Rachel ( he, רחל ), or as Rac ...
*
Women in Israel
Women in Israel comprise of the state's population . While Israel lacks an official constitution, the Israeli Declaration of Independence of 1948 states that “The State of Israel (…) will ensure complete equality of social and political ri ...
References
External links
* ''
The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself
''The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself'' is an anthology of modern Hebrew poetry, presented in the original language, with a transliteration into Roman script, a literal translation into English, and commentaries and explanations.
Two editions of this bo ...
'', 2003,
Profileat Poetry International Web
A short biography at The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallach, Yona
1944 births
1985 deaths
Feminist musicians
Bisexual feminists
Bisexual musicians
Bisexual women
Bisexual poets
Bisexual Jews
Deaths from cancer in Israel
Deaths from breast cancer
Israeli feminists
20th-century Israeli Jews
Israeli women poets
Jewish feminists
Israeli LGBT poets
20th-century Israeli women writers
20th-century Israeli poets
People from Kiryat Ono
Jewish women writers
20th-century LGBT people