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Yehuda Amichai

Poet

Israel · 1924–2000

Born in Würzburg, Germany, and emigrated with his Orthodox Jewish family to Palestine in 1936. He fought with the Jewish Brigade of the British army in the Second World War and later in the 1948, 1956 and 1973 wars. Widely regarded as Israel’s foremost modern poet and among the most translated poets of his generation.

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Question What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong?

Some people think that anti-Semitism didn’t really exist in Germany until 1933. I certainly don’t want to take anything away from Hitler’s guilt, but the anti-Semitism I grew up with predated Hitler. We were called names. We had stones thrown at us. And, yes, this created real sorrow. We defended ourselves as well as we could. Funny thing, the common name we were called was Isaac—the way Muslims are called Ali or Mohammed. They’d call out, Isaac, go back to Palestine, leave our home, go to your place. They threw stones at us and shouted, Go to Palestine. Then in Palestine we were told to leave Palestine—history juxtaposed can be very ironic.

Recorded Lawrence Joseph, Cafés in Greenwich Village, New York, The Paris Review, Issue 122, Spring 1992, 1992 source ↗

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