Uri Tsvi Grinberg

Uri Zvi Greenberg was a Hebrew and Yiddish poet born in 1894 in Eastern Galicia. His Expressionist verse often urged Jewish people to embrace their destiny and warned of the Holocaust. Greenberg, a supporter of the Revisionist Zionist Party, infused his poetry with a religious, mystical view of Zionism and extreme nationalism.

He co-published an avant-garde literary journal in Warsaw before immigrating to Palestine (now Israel) in 1924, after which he wrote exclusively in Hebrew. Despite being a prominent poet, his political and social views set him apart from mainstream Hebrew literature and Israeli politics. He briefly served in the Knesset. His early Hebrew poetry was influenced by Walt Whitman, while his later work became more politicized, reflecting themes of defense and sacrifice. Greenberg's early Yiddish works, particularly his poetry from 1912 to 1921, are also notable for their Expressionist style and vivid, often shocking imagery, especially concerning wartime experiences.12