Uri Zvi Greenberg (Hebrew: אוּרִי צְבִי גְּרִינְבֵּרְג; September 22, 1896 – May 8, 1981; also spelled Uri Zvi Grinberg) was an Israeli poet, journalist and politician who wrote in Yiddish and Hebrew.[1]
Widely regarded among the greatest poets in the country's history, he was awarded the Israel Prize in 1957 and the Bialik Prize in 1947, 1954 and 1977, all for his contributions to fine literature. Greenberg is considered the most significant representative of modernist Expressionism in Hebrew and Yiddish literature.
Biography
Uri Zvi Greenberg was born in the Galician town Bilyi Kamin, in Austria-Hungary, into a prominent Hasidic family. He was raised in Lemberg (Lwów) where he received a traditional Jewish religious education.[2]
In 1915, he was drafted into the Austrian army and fought in the First World War. His experience at the fording of the Save River, where many of his comrades in arms died or were severely wounded, affected him deeply, and appeared in his future writings for years to come.[3] After returning to Lemberg, he was witness to the pogroms 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]
Greenberg spent most of the 1930s in Poland, working as a Revisionist-Zionist activist, until the time when the Second World War erupted in 1939. At the outset of the war, Greenberg was able to escape and moved to Mandatory Palestine.[3] His parents and sisters remained behind and were subsequently murdered during the Holocaust.[7]
In 1950, Greenberg married Aliza, with whom he 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 of Ramat Gan.[9]
Young Greenberg was encouraged to write by Shmuel Yankev Imber, a Yiddish neo-romantic poet, and Tsevi Bikeles-Shpitser, the Yiddish theater critic who edited the local newspaper Tagblat.[3] Some of his poems in Yiddish and Hebrew were published when he was 16.[10][7] His first works were published in 1912 in the Labor Zionist weekly Der yidisher arbayter (The Jewish Laborer) in Lemberg and in Hebrew in Ha-Shiloaḥ in Odessa.[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 of Di Chaliastre (literally, "the gang"), a group of young Yiddish writers that included Melech 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 poem Royte 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 like Die Aktion and Der Sturm.[12]
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 of Albatros in Berlin before renouncing European society and immigrating to Palestine in December 1923.[14]
In his early days in Palestine, Greenberg wrote for Davar, one of the main newspapers of the Labour 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 in Royte epl fun vey beymer(Red apples from the tree of pain) and Veytikn-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.
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. With Abba Ahimeir and Yehoshua Yeivin, he founded Brit HaBirionim, a clandestine, self-declared fascist faction of the Revisionist movement which adopted an activist policy of violating British mandatory regulations. In the early 1930s, the members of Brit Habirionim group disrupted a British-sponsored census, sounded the shofar in prayer at the Western Wall despite a British prohibition, held a protest rally when a British colonial official visited Tel Aviv, and tore down Nazi flags from German offices in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.[17] When the British arrested hundreds of its members the organization effectively ceased to exist.
Greenberg believed that the Holocaust was a 'tragic but almost inevitable outcome of Jewish indifference to their destiny.' As early as 1923, Greenberg "envisioned and warned of the destruction of European Jewry."[18]
In 1957, Greenberg was awarded the Israel Prize for his contribution to literature.[20]
In 1976, the Knesset held a special session in honor of his eightieth birthday.[21]
Works
In Yiddish:
Evening Gold (פאַרנאַכטנגאָלד): collection from Grinberg’s early Neo-Romantic period.
Mefisto (מעפיסטא): a long poem engaging with the “Faustian” world, influenced by its depictions by Oswald Spengler.
In the Kingdom of the Cross (אין מלכות פֿון צלם): a long poem drawing on Grinberg’s experiences from the 1918 November Pogroms, intimately engaging with Christian Theology.
In Hebrew:
A Great Terror and Moon (poetry), Hedim, 1925 (Eymah Gedolah Ve-Yareah)
The Rising Masculinity (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)
Avidov Lipsker, Red Poem\ Blue Poem: Seven Essays on Uri Zvi Grinberg and Two Essays on Else Lasker-Schüler, Bar Ilan University Press, Ramat-Gan 2010.
Gilles Rozier, D'un pays sans amour, a novel about the life of UZG and his friendship with Peretz Markish and Melekh Ravitch, Grasset, Paris, 2011.
