Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000), was born to a religious
family in Wurzburg, Germany, and was raised speaking
both Hebrew and German. His family immigrated to
pre-state Israel in 1936. Amichai served with the
British Army`s Jewish Brigade in World War II and
fought in the elite Palmach unit during Israel`s 1948
War of Independence. He studied literature and biblical
studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was
poet in residence at numerous universities, including
Berkeley, NYU and Yale.
photo: Fritz Cohen
State of Israel ~ National Photo collection
Amichai published 13 books of poetry; he also wrote two novels, a collection of
short stories, children`s books, and plays which have been performed in the USA,
Germany, Italy, Poland and Holland. His work has been published in 40 languages,
and is included in high school and university syllabuses worldwide.
Among the many honors he received: the Shlonsky Prize (1961), the Brenner Prize
(1969),the Bialik Prize (1976), Wurzburg`s Prize for Culture (Germany, 1981), the
Israel Prize (1982), the Agnon Prize (1986), the Malraux Prize (France, 1994), the
Literary Lion Award (New York, 1994), Macedonia`s Golden Wreath Award
(1995), the Norwegian Bjornson Poetry Award (1996), an Honor Citation from
Assiut University, Egypt, and numerous Honorary Doctorates. He became an
Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1986), and a
Distinguished Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
(1991). His work is included in the "100 Greatest Works of Modern Jewish
Literature" (2001), and in innumerable international anthologies. He was
nominated for the Nobel Prize on more than one occasion.
Amichai`s archives are kept at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of
Yale University.
"Through his synthesis of the poetic with the everyday, Amichai effected a
revolutionary change in both the subject matter and the language of poetry."
Israel Prize Citation
Amichai has published eleven volumes of poetry in Hebrew, two novels, and a
book of short stories. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages. In
1982, Amichai received the Israel Prize for Poetry. He lived in Jerusalem until his
death on September 25, 2000.
Love of the Land
by Yehuda Amichai / Translated by Linda Zisquit
And the land is divided
into districts of memory and regions of hope,
and the residents mingle with each other,
like people returning from a wedding
with those returning from a funeral.
And the land isn't divided into war zones and peace zones.
And whoever digs a trench against cannon shells,
will return and lie in it with his girl,
if he lives till peace comes.
And the land is pretty.
Even surrounding enemies decorate it
with weapons shining in the sun
like beads on a neck.
And the lands a package-land:
and its well-tied and everything is in it,
and its tightly bound
and the strings sometimes hurt.
The land is very small
and I can contain it inside me.
The erosion of the land also erodes my rest
and the level of the Kinneret is always on my mind.
Therefore I am able to feel it entirely
by shutting an eye: sea-valley-mountain.
And therefore I am able to remember
all that's happened in it
at once, like a person remembering
his entire life at the moment of death.
A Jewish Cemetery in Germany
On a little hill amid fertile fields lies a small cemetery,
a Jewish cemetery behind a rusty gate, hidden by shrubs,
abandoned and forgotten. Neither the sound of prayer
nor the voice of lamentation is heard there
for the dead praise not the Lord.
Only the voices of our children ring out, seeking graves and cheering
each time they find one—like mushrooms in the forest, like wild strawberries.
Here's another grave! There's the name of my mother's
mother, and a name from the last century. And here's a name,
and there! And as I was about to brush the moss from the name—
Look! an open hand engraved on the tombstone, the grave of a kohen,
his fingers splayed in a spasm of holiness and blessing,
and here's a grave concealed by a thicket of berries
that has to be brushed aside like a shock of hair
from the face of a beautiful beloved woman.
Jews in the Land of Israel
We forget where we came from. Our Jewish
names from the Exile give us away,
bring back the memory of flower and fruit, medieval cities,
metals, knights who turned to stone, roses,
spices whose scent drifted away, precious stones, lots of red,
handicrafts long gone from the world
(the hands are gone too).
Circumcision does it to us,
as in the Bible story of Shechem and the sons of Jacob,
so that we go on hurting all our lives.
What are we doing, coming back here with this pain?
Our longings were drained together with the swamps,
the desert blooms for us, and our children are beautiful.
Even the wrecks of ships that sunk on the way
reached this shore,
even winds did. Not all the sails.
What are we doing
in this dark land with its
yellow shadows that pierce the eyes?
(Every now and then someone says, even after forty
or fifty years: "The sun is killing me.")
What are we doing with these souls of mist, with these names,
with our eyes of forests, with our beautiful children,
with our quick blood?
Spilled blood is not the roots of trees
but it's the closest thing to roots
we have.
From The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell (eds.),
New York: Harper and Row, 1986.