Before Your Shining, Full Eyes

Esther Raab was the first modern woman Hebrew poet born in the Land of Israel. Her religiously observant parents were among the founders of Petah Tikvah, where she was raised and educated. Although her father forbade her to attend the local secondary school because it was coeducational, she was widely read in Hebrew, French, and German literature. Her economically hard-pressed parents sent her in 1921 to live with relatives in Cairo, where she married. She and her husband returned and settled in Tel Aviv several years later. Her poetry is noted for its detailed evocation of the landscape of the land of Israel.