The Syrian-African Rift: Six Poems
Avot Yeshurun
1973
The Poem on the Eve of This Day
The sages say, that at the time the Syrian-African Rift
occurred, the celestial inhabitants were not
up-to-date. Each man was engaged
at his trade. In grinding hatchets. In splitting beasts.
Ancient humanity and land of the axe.
And when those wanted some change on the earth
they have to do it by putting to sleep…
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Creator Bio
Avot Yeshurun
1903–1992
The poet Avot Yeshurun was born Yeḥiel Perlmutter in Ukraine and immigrated to Palestine in 1925. He joined the Jewish militia, the Haganah, in 1929 and later fought in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. Known for a literary style that combined Arabic and Yiddish idioms, Yeshurun was one of the first Israeli writers to grapple with the Palestinian refugee problem.
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