Nathan Zach

Nathan Zach was born in 1930 in Berlin

Nathan Zach was born Harry Seitelbach in Berlin in 1930. His father was a German Jew and his mother was an Italian from Turin. The family moved to Mandatory Palestine in 1936 after the Nazis came to power and settled in Haifa.

He served in the IDF during the War of Independence and remained in the army until 1951. He later earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy and political science at the Hebrew University.

His first poems appeared in 1953 in a joint collection, and his book Shirim Rishonim followed in 1955. In 1959 he published an essay attacking the poetry of Nathan Alterman, which became a manifesto of the Likrat group and its call for free meter. He also translated poetry and plays, including works by Else Lasker-Schüler and Allen Ginsberg.

He taught at Israeli universities from 1960 to 1967 and lived in England from 1968, where he completed a PhD at the University of Essex. After his return he taught at Tel Aviv University and became a professor at the University of Haifa. In 2010 he made remarks on television about Mizrahi Jews that drew a petition to remove his work from school curricula, which was denied, and he later apologized.

His last poetry book appeared in 2016. In his final years he had Alzheimer's disease and lived in an assisted living facility. He died in Ramat Gan in 2020.