Yehoshua Tan Pai

Yehoshua Tan Pai was born in 1914 in Chișinău

He was born Shia Budeshtsky in Kishinev, Bessarabia, in 1914, to a religious family. He studied at the Magen David Hebrew Gymnasium founded by Rabbi Yehuda Leib Tsirelson.

In 1934 he moved to Eretz Israel and joined the Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz in Magdiel, working as an orchardist, farmer and builder. His first poetry book came out in 1937. He spent 1937 to 1938 in Paris completing his studies and came to love French.

He taught in Kfar Vitkin and Kfar Yehoshua. He joined Haaretz in 1942, left 3 years later and founded a small publishing house for children's books. He returned to Haaretz in 1948 and in 1951 became its editor in Jerusalem.

His poetry was shaped by French poetry of his time, and he translated from Yiddish, Romanian, German, French and English. His daughter Noa died in 1958, and his son Shaul fell in the War of Attrition. His later poems changed, and he gave his last years to his children's memory.

He lit a torch at the Independence Day ceremony in 1986, received the Bialik Prize in 1981, and died in 1988.