Avraham Ben-Yitzhak

Born Avraham Sonne in Przemyśl in Austrian Galicia (today in Poland), Avraham Ben-Yitzhak grew up in a traditional religious home but moved decisively away from religion. He became a Zionist while studying at universities in Vienna and Berlin, publishing in 1908 his first Hebrew poem, which was lauded by Bialik and others. Ben-Yitzhak was a staple of the Vienna café scene—friendly with Elias Canetti, Arnold Schoenberg, Arthur Schnitzler, and Martin Buber. Despite publishing only twelve poems during his lifetime, he is recognized as one of the founding fathers of modernist Hebrew poetry, with his last poems (including “A Few Say”) deemed masterpieces. Ben-Yitzhak was a teacher and later principal of Vienna’s Hebrew Teachers’ College until 1938, when he fled the Nazi occupation for Palestine. In Jerusalem, he befriended Leah Goldberg and other writers, who clamored for more of his mysterious and moving verse.