Nathan Alterman

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Nathan Alterman (ca.1952)

Nathan Alterman (born July 1910 in Warsaw , Russian Empire , † March 28, 1970 in Tel Aviv ) was an Israeli writer and Zionist .

biography

Alterman moved to Tel Aviv in 1925 . He studied agriculture in France, but after his return to Israel he began writing. He was as u. a. Active poet, columnist, satirist, children's writer and translator. In his works, Alterman also dealt with social and political problems of the state in sometimes crude and ironic ways. Alterman translated Molière and some of Shakespeare's plays into Hebrew .

In 1931 he published his first poem. As a writer, Alterman distinguished himself in two areas: on the one hand, as a writer of satirical verses in support of the Yishuv's efforts in the 1940s to establish a Jewish state; on the other hand, as a demanding modern poet who occupied a leading position in the literary avant-garde of Israel. In 1934 he worked for the daily Haaretz and in 1943 switched to Dawar , where he attacked the British authorities in his weekly Seventh Column .

His best-known poem is Magash Hakesef (German silver platter ), which is recited to this day on Israeli memorial days .

Altman was influenced in his literary work by French and Russian symbolists . As a writer, he built a mythical world with its own rules, which consists of two opposing elements. First, he describes a lost paradise. This is a primeval country from which the poet was expelled due to an original sin unknown to him and to which he now desires to be admitted again. Here, predators and powerful natural forces fight each other in overwhelming colors and sounds. In contrast to this elementary landscape is the mythical city, mechanized, hostile and decadent , but at the same time fascinating with its morbid aura. A leitmotif of Alterman's poems is the inevitable clash of these two components, which can only be resolved in the final moment of budding consciousness shortly before death. After the Six Day War in 1967 he joined the movement for a Greater Israel , which wanted to annex the territories conquered in the war and which later became a faction of the Likud which was being founded. Alterman is buried in the Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel-Aviv.

Work (selection)

  • In 1961/62 a four-volume edition of the writer's works was published

Poetry

  • Stars Outside
  • Poems of ten Brothers

drama

  • Kinneret, Kinneret
  • Pythagoras' Trial

Awards

literature

  • John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 38.
  • Encyclopedia Judaica , Vol. 2, pp. 773-776.
  • Dan Miron: Silver platter. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 5: Pr-Sy. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2014, ISBN 978-3-476-02505-0 , pp. 492-500.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume II (Alr-Az), Keter Publishing House Ltd., 2nd ed., 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865930-5 , p. 19
  2. ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume II (Alr-Az), Keter Publishing House Ltd., 2nd ed., 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865930-5 , p. 19
  3. ^ The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature
personal data
SURNAME Alterman, Nathan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli writer and Zionist
DATE OF BIRTH July 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1970
Place of death Tel Aviv