Tourists

Yehuda Amichai

1974

1

So condolence visits is what they’re here for,
sitting around at the Holocaust Memorial, putting on a serious face
at the Wailing Wall,
laughing behind heavy curtains in hotel rooms.
They get themselves photographed with the important dead
at Rachel’s Tomb and Herzl’s Tomb, and up on Ammunition Hill.
They weep at the beautiful prowess of our boys,
lust…
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Creator Bio

Yehuda Amichai

1924–2000
Born Ludwig Pfeuffer in Germany, Yehuda Amichai was a poet, author, translator, and playwright. His family left Germany when he was eleven and settled in Jerusalem. During World War II, Amichai served with the British army; he also fought in Israel’s War of Independence. Amichai wrote poetry, prose fiction, children’s books, translations, and plays, often playing everyday language against that of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish liturgy. Love and war were central themes of his writing. Amichai received the Israel Prize in 1982.

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