Uri Zvi
Greenberg

Uri Zvi Greenberg, byname Tur Malka (b.
Jan. 10, 1894, Bialykamien, Eastern
Galicia [now Ukraine]—d. May 8, 1981,
Israel), Hebrew and Yiddish poet whose
strident, Expressionist verse exhorts
the Jewish people to redeem their
historical destiny; he warned of the
impending Holocaust in such poems as “In
malkhus fun tselem” (1922; “In the
Kingdom of the Cross”). An adherent of
the right-wing Revisionist Zionist
Party, Greenberg used his poetry to
espouse a religious mystical view of
Zionism and to further Revisionism’s
extreme nationalism.
The son
of a Hasidic rabbi, Greenberg received a
traditional Hasidic upbringing in
Lemberg (now Lvov). In Warsaw, in 1920,
he was co-publisher of Khalyastre (“The
Gang”), an Expressionist, avant-garde
literary journal. He wrote in both
Yiddish and Hebrew until immigrating to
Palestine (later Israel) in 1924;
thereafter he wrote solely in Hebrew.
Considered a foremost Hebrew poet of his
generation, Greenberg was at odds with
the main intellectual and political
thrust in Hebrew literature and Israeli
politics because of his political and
social views. He served one term in the
Knesset (parliament) as a member of the
Herut Party (1949–51).
His
early Hebrew-language poetry, such as
“Yerushalayim shel matah” (1924; trans.
as “Jerusalem”), was influenced by Walt
Whitman. From the 1930s his work was
politicized, as in the collection Ezor
magen u-ne’um ben ha-dam (1930; “A
Shield of Defense and the Word of the
Son of Blood”), the poem “Migdal ha-Geviyyot”
(1937; “The Tower of Corpses”), and the
acclaimed collection Reḥovot hanahar
(1951; “Streets of the River”).