Nathan Alterman

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Nathan Alterman (Hebrew: ): August 14, 1910 – March 28, 1970) was an Israeli writer, playwright, editor, and translator. Alterman, despite not being elected to any office, was instrumental in socialist Zionist politics, both before and after Israel's establishment in 1948.

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Literary career

Kokhavim Bakhuts ("Stars Outside"), Alterman's first published book of poetry, was published in 1938. This collection, with its "neo-romantic styles, vibrant texture, and metric virtuosity," as Israeli scholar Benjamin Harshav puts it, has established him as a central figure in modern Hebrew literature.

"The Joy of the Poor" was his next big book (Hebrew: imàt aniym, 1941). This is a kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria composed of 31 interconnected poems, all from the viewpoint of a deceased man obsessed with the living woman he loves – a reversal of the Orpheus and Eurydice tale. The deceased man needs to shield his living love from war and poverty, but he needs to drag her into his family. His schemes are often dissatisfied. The light from a humble candle is enough to compel him to return to his childhood. The plot reads like a supernatural thriller, but the rhymes and the meters are consistent and elegant.

Alterman wrote a poem on the Jewish synagogue in 1942, when the first news of the Holocaust reached the Zionist Jewish community in British Mandate Palestine, "Praised are You... who has chosen us out of all the nations." "We heard not the world's furor at our children's cry, shadowed by scaffolds," Alterman writes in this poem. We're honored and adored us because you've chosen us out of all nations. You have chosen us from all countries, including Norwegians, Czechs, and Britons. They march toward scaffolds, Jewish children of reason, because their blood isn't weighed in among the majority, they only say, 'turn away your face." Alterman wrote the maqama "The Swedish Tongue" in 1943, in which he praised Sweden's readiness to welcome Jewish refugees from Denmark.

He wrote a poem in 1943 that was critical of Pope Pius XII, which is also displayed at the Yad Vashem museum.

Alterman's weekly column in the Labour Movement's "Davar" newspaper in 1945-1947 condemned the British army's brutalities and praised the illegal immigrant boats that land Jewish holocaust survivors on the country's shores, in defiance of British policy. The 1945 "In Praise of an Italian Captain" is one of these well-known of them (Hebrew: )

He wrote several patriotic poems in the early stages of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the most well-known of which is "The Silver Platter" (Hebrew: magásh ha-késef). This poem was written in response to Chaim Weizmann's words in December 1947, shortly after the UN Partition Plan for Palestine was adopted, "No state is ever given on a silver platter..." The partition initiative gives the Jews not only a chance but also a chance. Alterman's poem compares a scene from Mount Sinai, where the Jewish People are eager to receive the Jewish state as the Israelite were waiting to receive the Torah. And yet, instead of Moses descending with the Tablets of Stone, the people see two stranger youths, a boy and a girl, injured, and near death from exhaustion.

When asked, "Who are you?"

"We are the silver platter on which the state of the Jews was handed over to you," they say.

Shakespeare, Molière, Racine, and Russian classics were adapted into Hebrew and Yiddish by Alterman. He drafted the lyrics of the famous Moshe Vilenski song Kalaniyot, which was performed by Shoshana Damari.

Alterman's poems, e.g., "A meeting with no end" has been turned into a hit song ( ). Shtisel's episode "First Smile," which is read at a memorial service during the program, is named after one of his poems, "First Smile." Robert Friend's "First Smile" in English (found in Translation, Toby Press, 2006) is also included in the story.

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