Esther Raab

Esther Raab

Esther Raab (* 1894 in Petah Tikva , Palestine ; † 1981 ibid, Israel ) was an Israeli poet .

Life

Origin and youth

Esther Raab's grandfather Eliezer Raab emigrated with his brother, two sisters and his son Judah (1858–1948) in 1876 from the Hungarian village of Szent István to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem . Judah married Lea (née Scheinberger) for the second time. In 1878, the couple joined a group of settlers who founded the city of Petah Tikvah. Esther Raab was born in 1894 as the second of four children.

The relatively primitive living conditions, frequent malaria attacks, school and early romances shaped her as a woman who had got to know hardship. She enjoyed studying, while her father categorically declined to attend school after it was decided that young men and women should be taught in the same classrooms.

Although her formal education ended at the age of 15, she was able to read Hebrew and had acquired knowledge of German and French literature. Later she pursued some studies at the Paris Sorbonne . During late adolescence, she supported the pioneering work of the kibbutzum of Degania and Nes Ziona . At the age of 19 she worked as a teacher and wrote her first poems.

The conditions in Palestine were so difficult for her family that Esther Raab was sent to relatives in Egypt in 1921 .

Life as a poet

Memorial plaque on Esther Raab's former home in Tel Aviv

In December 1921, Esther Raab married her cousin Isaac Grün (born 1888). Green was an understanding husband who encouraged her to pursue her literary interests and who supported her visits to France .

Her first poems were published in 1922.

After about five years in Cairo , the couple moved to Israel and built an imposing, red house in Tel-Aviv , which established itself as a center for writers and painters. The childlessness in their marriage, apparently due to their numerous malaria infections, and the stillbirth of a son in 1924 were particularly painful for them. Isaac Grün died unexpectedly in January 1930, the year Esther Raab's first book, Kimshonim (Thistles), was published.

Grün's early death had a significant impact on her literary productivity, after that she no longer wanted to write or publish anything, she felt frozen and orphaned.

A second marriage with the artist Arieh Allweil was short-lived - it lasted from 1932 to 1935. Financial difficulties overshadowed the rest of her life, during which her poetic work was often dormant for short or long periods (e.g. from 1935 to 1947). She maintained close relationships with her extended family, especially her nephew, the writer Ehud Ben-Ezer . He served her as an administrator in 1981.

reception

Esther Raab is often referred to as the first native Israeli poet. She was born in Ottoman-influenced Palestine and saw the establishment of the State of Israel at the age of 52.

The literary establishment was not particularly open to works by women under the influence of Chaim Nachman Bialik in the early 1920s. The works of Elisheba , Rachel , Jocheved Bat-Miriam and Esther Raab represented a kind of revolutionary phenomenon in the field of modern Hebrew poetry. Esther Raab played an important role in it due to her lack of school education.

The most important book remains her first, Kimshonim , a collection of 32 poems. Most are short, untitled and largely absurd. Raab's language and metaphors are blunt and uncompromising. By paying attention to the details of the flora in Palestine, she describes an abundance of special plants that she met in her youth. Their goal was not to present a landscape, but to present the emotions seething beneath the surface. According to her own account, she experienced the country in constant motion .

Her importance as a poet, as a woman and as a pioneer is evident in many areas of her work through the depth and range of her voice. She was hailed as a poet of nature because she reflected the landscapes of Israel in a new context. Even so, or perhaps because of it, it was often ignored in surveys of Hebrew poetry.

Raab's thematically daring and technically innovative poetry recently attracted attention in the anthology The Defiant Muse (1999) by Dorit Weisman.

Only a few poems by Esther Raab have been published in German translation.

bibliography

Books published in Hebrew

• Kimshonim (thistles). Poetry, Hedim, Tel Aviv 1930.
• Shirei Esther Raab (poems by Esther Raab). Massada, Tel Aviv 1964.
• Tefilah Aharonah (Last Prayer). Poetry, Am Oved, Tel Aviv 1972.
• Gan She-Harav (A Garden Destroyed). Prose and Poetry, Tarmil, Tel Aviv 1983.
• Kol Ha-Shirim (Collected Poems). Zmora Bitan, Tel Aviv 1988.

Books about Esther Raab

• Ben-Ezer, Ehud, Am Yamim Shel La'anah u-Dvash . Biography. Oved, Tel Aviv 1998.
• Luz, Zvi Shirat Esther Raab: Monographiyah . Monograph. Hakibbutz Meuchad, Tel Aviv 1997.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Virtual Jewish Library
2. ^ Jewish Archives for Women
3. ^ Israel - Poetry International