Avoth Yeshurun was born in the Ukraine in 1904. He was raised in a Chassidic home and emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1925.
Yeshurun spent a great deal of time in rural Jewish and Arab villages, intermittently dredging swamps, picking fruit and working as a watchman and a construction worker. His family was killed during the Holocaust. In later years he became a regular contributor to the literary journal Siman Qri’a. After his death in 1992 he was awarded the Israel Prize.
Poems
The collection
The poem on the eve of this day
Tree
Lull
Also on this site:
Keeping in the difficulty
An excerpt from the foreword to the English edition of The Syrian African Rift by Harold Schimmel
On Avoth Yeshurun
By Gabriel Levin
Bibliography
Books Published in Hebrew
En li’akhshav (I Have No Now). Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1992.
Adon menuxa (Master of Rest). Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1990.
Homograf (Homograph). Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1985.
Sha’ar knisa, sha’ar yetsia (Entrance Gate, Exit Gate). Hakibbutz Hameuchad/Siman Qri'a, 1981.
Qapella qolot (A Cappella Voices). Siman Qri’a, 1977.
Ha-shever ha-suri-afriqani (The Syrian-African Rift). Siman Qri'a, 1974.
Ze shem ha-sefer (This is the Name of the Book). Schocken, 1970.
Shloshim ’amud shel Avoth Yeshurun (Thirty Pages of Avoth Yeshurun). Schocken, 1964.
Re’em (Oryx). Dvir, 1960.
Al xokhmat drakhim (On the Wisdom of Roads). Maxbarot Lesifrut, 1942.
Books in Translation
The Syrian-African Rift. In English. Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society, 1980
Individual poems have been published in Czech, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Websites on Yeshurun
In English:
The web-site of the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature with a special page dedicated to Avoth Yeshurun
A summary of an article by Gideon Avraham: Towards a standardized presentation of compounds in Avoth Yeshurun’s later poetry
A presentation of a book by Michael Gluzman (The Politics of Canonicity – Lines of Resistance in Modernist Hebrew Poetry) with a chapter devoted to Avoth Yeshurun
An article by Yosefa Loshitzky (Identity Politics on the Israeli Screen) with a reference to a poem by Avoth Yeshurun
An article by Sidra Dekoven Ezrahi (“Israel and Jewish Writing: The Next 50 Years”) with reference to a poem by Avoth Yeshurun
An article by Barbara Mann (“The Vicarious Landscape of Memory in Tel Aviv Poetry”) with several references Avoth Yeshurun and his poetry
In French:
A French translation of a poem by Avoth Yeshurun concerning Jesus
In Hebrew:
An article about Avoth Yeshurun, his poetry and the house in Tel Aviv where he lived
A web-site dedicated to Avoth Yeshurun
An article by Zvi Jagendorf concerning the unique language of Avoth Yeshurun
In Italian:
An article about the Hebrew language by Hayim Be'er with a reference to Avoth Yeshurun
In Spanish:
An article about Hebrew poetry with a reference to Avoth Yeshurun and his poetry
In Swedish:
A presentation of a Swedish literary periodical (Ariel) with an article by Gidon Avraham: Det sammansatta nuet i Avoth Yeshuruns poesi
