Uri Zvi Greenberg | |
|---|---|
אורי צבי גרינברג | |
 Greenberg in 1956 | |
| Faction represented in theKnesset | |
| 1949–1951 | Herut |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 22 September 1896 |
| Died | 8 May 1981(1981-05-08) (aged 84) |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | Austro-Hungarian Army |
| Years of service | 1915–1918 (deserted) |
Uri Zvi Greenberg (Hebrew:אורי צבי גרינברג; September 22, 1896 – May 8, 1981; also spelledUri Zvi Grinberg) was anIsraeli poet, journalist and politician who wrote inYiddish andHebrew.[1]
Widely regarded among the greatest poets in the country's history, he was awarded theIsrael Prize in 1957 and theBialik Prize in 1947, 1954 and 1977, all for his contributions tofine literature. Greenberg is considered the most significant representative of modernistExpressionism in Hebrew and Yiddish literature.
Uri Zvi Greenberg was born inBilyi Kamin,Galicia,Austria-Hungary (now inUkraine, to a prominentHasidic family. He was raised inLemberg (nowLviv, Ukraine), and received a traditional Jewish religious education.[2]
He was drafted into the Austrian army in 1915, and fought inWorld War I. While fording theSava River under heavySerbianfire, many of his comrades in arms died, or were severely wounded. The experience deeply affected him, and appeared in his writings for years to come. Hedeserted towards the end of the war in 1918, and fled toLemberg.[3] After returning to Lemberg, he was witness to thepogroms of November 1918.[4] Greenberg and his family miraculously escaped being shot by Polish soldiers celebrating their victory over the Ukrainians, an experience which convinced him that all Jews living in the “Kingdom of the Cross” faced physical annihilation.[3]
He moved toWarsaw in 1920, where he wrote for the radical literary publications of young Jewish poets.[5] After a brief stay in Berlin,[6] he madealiyah to theLand of Israel (thenMandatory Palestine) in 1924.[7] He went back to Poland in the 1930s, working as a Revisionist-Zionist activist untilWorld War II erupted in 1939, when he returned to Israel.[3] His parents and sisters remained behind and were subsequently murdered duringthe Holocaust.[7]
He married Aliza in 1950, and had three daughters and two sons.[1] He added "Tur-Malka" to the family name, but continued to use "Greenberg" to honor family members who were murdered in the Holocaust.[8] Greenberg was a resident ofRamat Gan.[9] He was awarded theIsrael Prize in 1957 for contributions toHebrew literature, and the Knesset held a special session to honor him on his 80th birthday in 1976.[2]
Young Greenberg was encouraged to write byShmuel Yankev Imber, a Yiddish neo-romantic poet, and Tsevi Bikeles-Shpitser, the Yiddish theater critic who edited the local newspaperTagblat.[3] Some of his poems inYiddish andHebrew were published when he was 16.[10][7] His first works were published in 1912 in the Labor Zionist weeklyDer yidisher arbayter (The Jewish Laborer) inLemberg and in Hebrew inHa-Shiloaḥ inOdessa.[5] His first book, in Yiddish, was published in Lwów while he was fighting on the Serbian front. In 1920, Greenberg moved to Warsaw, with its lively Jewish cultural scene. He was one of the founders ofDi Chaliastre (literally, "the gang"), a group of young Yiddish writers that includedMelech Ravitch. He also edited a Yiddish literary journal,Albatros.[11] In the wake of his iconoclastic depictions of Jesus in the second issue of Albatros, particularly his prose poemRoyte epl fun veybeymer (Red Apples from the Trees of Pain). The magazine incorporated avant-garde elements both in content and typography, taking its cue from German periodicals likeDie Aktion andDer Sturm.[12]
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The journal was banned by the Polish censors, and in November 1922 Greenberg fled to Berlin to escape prosecution.[13] Greenberg published the last two issues ofAlbatros in Berlin before renouncing European society and immigrating to Israel in December 1923.[14]
In his early days in Israel, Greenberg wrote forDavar, one of the main newspapers of theLabour Zionist movement. His works represent a synthesis of traditional Jewish values and an individualistic lyrical approach to life and its problems; he drew on Jewish sources such as the Bible, the Talmud and the prayer book, but was also influenced by European literature.[15] In the second and third issues of Albatros, Greenberg invokes pain as a key marker of the modern era. This theme is illustrated inRoyte epl fun vey beymer(Red apples from the tree of pain) andVeytikn-heym af slavisher erd (Pain-Home on Slavic Ground).[16]
In his poems and articles, he warned of the fate in store for the Jews of the Diaspora. After the Holocaust, he mourned the fact that his terrible prophecies had come true.
Greenberg predicted and warned in the decades before, of the coming destruction of European Jewry. He believed that the Holocaust was a "tragic but almost inevitable outcome of Jewish indifference to their destiny."[17] He became more militant after the1929 Hebron massacre and joined theRevisionist camp in 1930, representing the movement at severalWorld Zionist Congresses, and inPoland. He foundedBrit HaBirionim withAbba Ahimeir andYehoshua Yeivin, a faction of the Revisionist movement, which adopted an activist policy of violating British mandatory regulations. Members of the group disrupted a British-sponsored census in the early 1930s, sounded theshofar in prayer at theWestern Wall despite a British prohibition, held a protest rally when aBritish colonial official visited Tel Aviv, and tore downNazi flags from German offices in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.[18] The British arrested hundreds of its members and the organization effectively ceased to exist.[citation needed]
FollowingIsraeli independence in 1948, Greenberg joinedMenachem Begin'sHerut movement. He was elected to thefirst Knesset, but lost his seat in thetwo years later.[19] After theSix-Day War, he joined theMovement for Greater Israel, which advocated Israeli sovereignty overJudea and Samaria.[2] Scholar Dan Tamir considers Greenberg's ideology among the most prominent historical examples of "Hebrew fascism."[20]
In Yiddish:
In Hebrew:
