Nathan Alterman

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Natan Alterman

Natan Alterman (born 1910, Warsaw - died 1970, in Israel) was an Israeli poet, journalist, and translator.

He was born in Warsaw, and moved to Tel Aviv in 1925, where he continued his studies at the Gymnasium. His first published book of poetry was Kokhavim Bakhuts ("Stars Outside"), published in 1938. According to Benjamin Harshav, this volume, "with its neo-romantic themes, highly charged texture, and metrical virtuosity, immediately established him as a major force."

His next major book was Simhat Ani'im ("The Joy of the Poor") (1941), which many regard as his magnum opus. This is a kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria consisting of 31 interconnected poems, all from the viewpoint of the ghost of a dead man obsessed with the living woman he loves - a reversal of the Orpheus and Eurydice story. The dead man wants to protect his living love from war and poverty, but more than anything he wants to drag her into his world. His plans are continually frustrated. The light from a humble candle is enough to drive him back. The story reads like a supernatural thriller, but the rhyme and the meters are regular and elegant.

In 1942, Alterman wrote an angry poem in which Jewish children who have been murdered in the Holocaust give sarcastic thanks to God for choosing them.

Alterman translated Shakespeare, Moliere and Racine into Hebrew, as well as Yiddish and Russian writers.

A famous Israeli song of which the lyrics were written by Nathan Alterman, is Kalaniyot.

Alterman criticized David Ben Gurion for being too willing to give up the area known as Judea and Samaria or the West Bank after the 1967 War, in return for a peace agreement. See The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself (2003), ISBN 0-8143-2485-1