Creator Bio

Leah Goldberg

1911–1970

Hebrew poet, playwright, and professor Leah Goldberg was born in Königsberg and grew up in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, where she attended a Hebrew high school. She studied in Berlin and Bonn, earning a doctorate in Semitic languages. Goldberg returned to Kaunas in 1932 and was an active member of the Petaḥ group of poets. In 1935, she moved to Mandatory Palestine, where she taught and edited children’s books. In the 1950s, she commenced teaching at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and founded the department of comparative literature. Goldberg published a large number of volumes of poetry, novels, plays, translations, and books for children. Steeped in Russian culture and European aesthetics, she eschewed national themes in her writing. She was awarded the Israel Prize for Literature in 1970.

Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator

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My Friends from Arnon Street

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Arnon Street is not the largest street in Tel Aviv. On the contrary, it is a small street, nearly an alleyway. There is very little traffic. A double-decker bus does not go through it, or any other…

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Nights

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All those things whose names I hushed in secret, I meet in the night’s abyss. I face the dark. Alert, remembering. Silently, again I’ll let you in—my friends, my beloved dead. And here you are as…

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A Letter to the Readers of My Friends from Arnon Street

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Often I receive letters from children who read my stories, and one question that is nearly always put to me in the letters is: “Did it really happen?” But, you see, I cannot always answer this…

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The Love of Teresa de Meun

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I do not want to see you in my dreams each night. I do not want to tremble when I hear a footstep at my door. I do not want to think of you each hour of every day. I do not want to see in the…