Are You

Natan Zach

1992

Are you Avraham’s, Yitzhak’s, Yaakov’s?
Are you my mother’s god?
What’s mine of all this?
What did I take by force of hand
and why am I alone
in a city meant to be my city
on account of a mother born to be my mother,
whose eyes you closed in compassion
after blinding them in pity
in order not to see the pain,
in order not to see how much it hurts…
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Creator Bio

Natan Zach

1936–2020
Natan Zach (born Harry Seitelbach) was a poet, writer, editor, translator, and literary scholar. As a child, he moved to Palestine from Germany, settling in Haifa. Zach enlisted in the Israeli army at the age of seventeen and fought in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. Zach was a leading figure in the Israeli literary scene in the first decades of the country’s independence and had a profound impact on Israeli poetry. His Kol he-ḥalav ve-ha-devash (All the Milk and Honey, 1966) is considered a modern classic. He also wrote children’s books and nonfiction. Zach was awarded the Israel Prize in 1995.

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