Literatureישורון קשת

Yeshurun Keshet

Yeshurun Keshet was an Israeli poet, essayist, translator and literary critic who received the Bialik Prize in 1976.

1893 to 1977Hebrew poetry and essaysHebrew translations of KafkaTranslating Montaigne's essaysBialik Prize in 1976

Born: 29 November 1893, Mińsk Mazowiecki
Died: 22 February 1977, Jerusalem
Occupation: poet, translator, essayist, literary critic
Education: Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium

Yeshurun Keshet was born in 1893 in Mińsk Mazowiecki

Keshet was born Ya'akov Yehoshua Koplewitz in Mińsk Mazowiecki, near Warsaw, in Congress Poland. He studied at a Russian gymnasium. In 1911 his parents sent him to Tel Aviv to study at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium.

Between 1920 and 1926 he studied at universities in Rome and Berlin, and he also taught in Marijampole, Lithuania. In 1921 he married Dr. Käthe Hollander in Berlin, and they had a son, Emanuel. They later separated, and he married Nechama.

Keshet wrote poetry, essays and studies of writers and thinkers. He looked at the ties between Hebrew writing in the Land of Israel and European culture. He translated works from English, French and German, including writings by Moses Hess, Franz Kafka and William James.

After the State of Israel was founded in 1948, he took the Hebrew name Yeshurun Keshet. He died in 1977 at his home in Jerusalem and was buried on the Mount of Olives. In 1996 his widow Nechama published a collection of all his poems.