Uri Zvi Greenberg
Template:MKs Uri Zvi Grinberg (also Uri Zvi Greenberg) (Hebrew: אורי צבי גרינברג, 22 September 1896 – 8 May 1981) was an acclaimed Israeli poet and journalist.[1]
Biography
Uri Zvi Grinberg was born in the shtetel Bialikamin (Biliy Kamin or Biały Kamień), Galitzia, into a prominent Hasidic family and raised in Lemberg (Lviv), then Austria-Hungary (today Ukraine). Some of his poems in Yiddish and Hebrew were published before he was 20. In 1915 he was drafted into the army to fight in the First World War. After returning to Lemberg, he was witness to the pogroms of November 1918. He later moved to Warsaw and Berlin. In Warsaw, he wrote for the Yiddish newspaper Moment. [2] He immigrated to Mandate Palestine (the Land of Israel) in 1924. Grinberg was in Poland when the Second World War erupted in 1939, but managed to escape.
In 1950, Grinberg married Aliza, with whom he had two daughters and three sons.[3] He added "Tur-Malka" to the family name, but continued to use "Grinberg" to honor family members who perished in the Holocaust.[4]
Literary career
After arriving in Palestine, Grinberg wrote for Davar, one of the main newspapers of the Labour Zionist movement.
Political activism
In 1930, Greenberg joined the Revisionist camp, representing the Revisionist movement at several Zionist congresses and in Poland. After the 1929 Hebron massacre he became more militant, and joined both the Irgun and Lehi.
Greenberg envisioned and warned of the destruction of European Jewry. He believed that the Holocaust was a tragic but largely inevitable outcome of Jewish indifference to their destiny.[5]
Following Israeli independence in 1948, he joined Menachem Begin's Herut movement. In 1949, he was elected to the first Knesset. He lost his seat in the 1951 elections. After the Six-Day War he joined the Movement for Greater Israel (a mistranslation of Eretz Yisrael Shlema - "Entire Land of Israel"), which advocated Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.
It has been said of Greenberg that if he was not so far to the right politically, he would have been considered the Poet Laureate of Israel.
Died in the town of Ramat Gan. where he lived his last years in an accommodation offered by the local council.
Awards
Greenberg was awarded the Israel Prize in 1957 for his contribution to Hebrew literature.
Books in Hebrew
- A Great Fear and the Moon (poetry), Hedim, 1925 (Eymah Gedolah Ve-Yareah)
- Manhood on the Rise (poetry), Sadan, 1926 (Ha-Gavrut Ha-Olah)
- A Vision of One of the Legions (poetry), Sadan, 1928 (Hazon Ehad Ha-Legionot)
- Anacreon at the Pole of Sorrow (poetry), Davar, 1928 (Anacreon Al Kotev Ha-Itzavon)
- House Dog (poetry), Hedim, 1929 (Kelev Bayit)
- A Zone of Defense and Address of the Son-of-Blood (poetry), Sadan, 1929 (Ezor Magen Ve-Ne`um Ben Ha-Dam)
- The Book of Indictment and Faith (poetry), Sadan, 1937 (Sefer Ha-Kitrug Ve-Ha-Emunah)
- From the Ruddy and the Blue (poetry), Schocken, 1950 (Min Ha-Kahlil U-Min Ha-Kahol)
- Streets of the River (poetry), Schocken, 1951 (Rehovot Ha-Nahar)
- In the Middle of the World, In the Middle of Time (poetry), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1979 (Be-Emtza Ha-Olam, Be-Emtza Ha-Zmanim)
- Selected Poems (poetry), Schocken, 1979 (Mivhar Shirim)
- Complete Works of Uri Zvi Greenberg, Bialik Institute, 1991 (Col Kitvei)
- At the Hub[Bialik Institute, 2007 (Baavi Ha-Shir)
See also
References
- ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DE7DB1738F933A25756C0A967948260
- ^ http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/2/201
- ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DE7DB1738F933A25756C0A967948260
- ^ Poetry and Prophecy
- ^ http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/PEOPLE/grinb.html