David Shimoni
David Shimoni (originally Schimonowitz ; born August 25, 1891 in Bobruisk , † December 10, 1956 in Tel Aviv ) was a Hebrew poet.
life and work
He was born in a Stetl near Minsk and was the son of Nissan Schimonowitz, a learned follower of the Haskala . He received his first literary impressions in the library of the father of his childhood friend Berl Katznelson . After initially translating poems from Russian, his poem Ben ha-Schemaschot ("Between the Suns") appeared in 1902 with an encouraging hint from Bialik . His early lyrical work appeared in the most prestigious Hebrew literary magazines. Due to state restrictions on the admission of Jews to universities, he moved to Erez Israel in 1909 , where he stayed for about a year and made friends in particular with Aharon David Gordon and Josef Chaim Brenner . The two months he spent on a trip across the country, working in orange groves and as a guard in Rechovot and Petach Tikwa , served as poetic inspiration for the rest of his life. From 1911 to 1914 he studied oriental philology and philosophy at universities in Berlin , Heidelberg and Würzburg . Collections of his poems appeared in Warsaw in 1911 and 1912 . When World War I broke out, he returned to Russia and spent the war in his hometown and in Saint Petersburg . When the February Revolution broke out , he moved to Moscow and became the editorial secretary of Ha-Am ("The People"). At this time his poetry cycles and his translations were published by Tolstoy , Lermontow , Pushkin and Heine .
After several attempts, he left Russia and returned to Palestine in 1921, where he wrote more poems and idylls . In 1925 he settled in Tel Aviv and taught the Tanach and Hebrew literature at the middle school in Herzlia until the end of his life . In addition to his literary activities, he became a member and eventually chairman of the Academy of the Hebrew Language and belonged to the Israel Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem .
His poems reflect the ideals of the Second Aliyah and describe the life of the socialist- Zionist Chalutzim in the emerging Jewish state. He belonged to a circle of Hebrew writers, all under the influence of Bialik, who had been the most important exponents of Israeli literature for over a generation . During his lifetime, his idylls were especially popular; the rest of his work is characterized by the prominence of the lyrical ego and a didactic style of disseminating ideas that also uses satire as a medium. In his later works Shimoni also deals with contemporary issues and the needs of the people.
David Shimoni's grandson Yuval Shimoni is also a writer . His novella Maof Hayonah is known .
Awards
- Bialik Prize in 1936 and 1949
- 1954 Israel Prize for Literature
literature
- Encyclopedia Judaica , Vol. 14, pp. 1404-1407.
Individual evidence
- ^ Gershon Shaked: Contemporary Israeli Literatur and the Subjecz of Fiction - From Nationhood to the Self ; in E. Miller Budick (Ed.): Ideology and Jewish Identity in Israeli and American Literature , State University of New York Press, 2001, p. 106
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Shimoni, David |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Schimonowitz, David |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hebrew poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 25, 1891 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bobruisk |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 10, 1956 |
| Place of death | Tel Aviv |