Yonatan Ratosh

Yonatan Ratosh was born in 1908 in Warsaw

Uriel Heilperin was born in Warsaw in 1908, the eldest son of educator Yechiel Heilperin and Pnina, a Hebrew kindergarten teacher. He grew up speaking Hebrew. During World War I the family moved to Odessa, and in 1919 he sailed to the Land of Israel on the ship Ruslan.

He studied at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Jerusalem and graduated from Herzliya Gymnasium in 1926. He studied law for a year and then went to France to study linguistics. He published his first poem in Haaretz in 1926.

In 1934 he began working at HaYarden, the Revisionist daily newspaper. He joined the Irgun and later Lehi, and helped edit Lehi's newspaper Mivrak in 1947 and 1948. In 1937 he first signed a poem with the name Yonatan Ratosh.

In 1939 he founded the Canaanite movement with historian Adia Horon. The movement called for a new Hebrew nation separate from Jewish identity. In 1950 he founded the literary journal Alef, and in 1952 he published a Hebrew translation of science fiction stories under his real name.

His last poetry book, Hava, appeared in 1963. He received the Prime Minister's Prize. He died in 1981.