Yonatan Ratosh

Yonatan Ratosh ( _he. יונתן רטוש), was the nom de plume of Israeli poet Uriel Shelach (18 November 1908 – 25 March1981, _he. אוריאל שלח).

Biography

Born as Uriel Halperin ( _he. אוריאל הלפרין) in the Russian Empire in 1908 to a Zionist family. His father, Yechiel, was a Hebraist educator and raised Ratosh and his siblings (including linguist Uzzi Ornan) in Hebrew. In 1921, he migrated to Mandated Palestine to learn at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Adopting the pseudonym of Yonatan Ratosh, he began to write poetry that "tore apart" (Hebrew: ריטש - "riṭṭêš") existing conventions of style, language, and culture. In the late 1920s, Ratosh (using his birth name, Halperin) embraced Revisionist Zionism, becoming close friends with Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and Avraham Stern. A talented writer, Halperin became the editor of the official publication of the Irgun, "Ba-Cherev" (בחרב, "By the Sword").

In 1937, Jabotinsky demoted Halperin for the extremism of his views. Frustrated, he travelled to Paris to meet with another disillusioned Revisionist, Semitic language scholar Adia Gurevitch (A.G. Horon). Halperin and Gurevitch formulated "a new Hebrew consciousness" combining the former's political ideas with the latter's historical outlook. In their minds, the Jewish People were a part of a larger Hebrew civilization bound together by Canaanite languages and nationhood in Canaan. With the outbreak of World War II, Gurevitch went to America and Halperin returned to Palestine and began writing (as Ratosh) for Haaretz.

In an essay entitled "Ketav el ha-No'ar ha-'Ivri" (כתב אל הנער העברי, "Epistle to the Hebrew Youth") from 1943, Halperin/Ratosh presented his new ideas to the Hebrew-speaking public. This and other essays called for the community of the Yishuv to divorce themselves from their Jewish roots and embrace a new identity as "Hebrews". A number of Sabras and long-established olim were drawn to his ideas, being disconnected from Diaspora Jewry, disillusioned after the Holocaust, and feeling alienated by the growing number of immigrats to Palestine. These "Young Hebrews" became better known as Canaanites, or part of a Canaanite movement - from a disparaging article by Haaretz editor Avraham Shlonsky.

Attempting to organize his followers, Ratosh started a Canaanite magazine called "Alef" in 1950. The publication only lasted a few years and while the Canaanites failed in organizing a mass movement, they had a profound impact on Israeli culture. Ratosh continued publishing poetry and enjoyed a brief renaissance as an ideologue after the Six Day War. His political philosophy had an impact across the political spectrum: sharing the Right's irredentism and advocating a secular (in lieu of Jewish) state like post-Zionists, particularly radical peace advocate Uri Avnery. His last poem in book form was "Hava" ("Eve"), published in 1963. In it, he reinterprets the story of the Garden of Eden as the coronation of a Rain God.

Ratosh died in 1981, leaving behind a number of children, including mathematician and Israel Prize laureate Saharon Shelah.

Further reading

*"The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself" (2003) - ISBN 0-8143-2485-1
*"Homeland or Holy Land?: The "Canaanite" Critique of Israel", by James S. Diamond
*"The New Hebrew Nation", by Yaacov Shavit
*"Jewish State or Israeli Nation?", by Boas Evron