12 Friday, January 28, 1983
THE DETROIT. JEWISH NEWS
Natan Zach Noted Poet
With extreme pride we wish to announce the creation of
it
the moss school
"a community of children"
Gary Moss, Shelly Moss, with a staff of other creative educators
provide a developmental educational program for children grades K-6,
beginning with the next school year, September 1983.
The Moss School will be housed in our North Campus facility at 4150
Middlebelt Road, W. Bloomfield, MI. Our highly individualized approach
will focus on caring, motivation, building positive self-concepts, andfocusing
in on special needs and abilities.
The academic content will include:
• Reading
• Science
• Mathematics
• Health Education
• Social Studies
• Foreign Language
• Computer Science • Geography
• Art & Graphics
• Personal Growth
• Music
Registr=ation forms are now available. For further information call
851-2071.
Israel's poets are among
the nation's cultural war-
riors. They represent the in-
terpreters of their people's
joys as well as agonies. They
are among the masters who
represent the emphasis on
the ethical codes, and they
echo the historical aspects
of a people's continuity
which is imbedded in revi-
val as well as the record of
an unending national ex-
perience.
Natan Zach is one of
such giants. He is the
iconoclast, the spokesman
for modernism in Hebraic
lore.
There is emphasis on this
in his collected poems, "The
Static Element"
(Atheneum).
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Location: Walnut Lake Rd. at
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across from Shenandoah Golf
Course, adjacent to Temple
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Walnut Lake Rd.
This could be the "BUY" of your lifetime.
Regularly priced at $181,800 base to $200,000.
Builders will be at our furnished model
Saturdays and Sundays until all units are sold.
Remaining units and model can be seen: Wed.,
Fri., Sat. and Sun.-1:00-5:00 pm.
For an appointment to see at other times call:
J. Singer and Sons — 569-0040
MODEL PHONE 661-0763
Developed and Sold by
is Singer a Sons Development Co.
In this accumulation of
poems are some of his works
dating from 1955 to 1979.
Translated by Peter
Everwine, they mark a not-
able introduction of the
poet's works, introduced for
the first time to English
readers.
There is wit in Zach's
works, and the irony is
equally impressive, as evi-
denced in "When God First
Said."
Returning to Israel in
1979, he is presently teach-
ing at Haifa University.
The recognition he at-
tained in Israel is seen in his
having been awarded the
Bialik Prize in 1981.
Notable among his ex-
pressive poems now in
English translation is "To a
Student in Jerusalem."
When God First Said
When God first said Let there be light
He meant it would not be dark for Him.
In that moment He didn't think about the sky,
but the trees already were filling with water,
the birds receiving air and body.
Then the first wind touched God's eyes
and He saw it in ' all His glory
and thought It is good. He didn't think then
about people, people in their multitude,
but they already were standing apart from the fig leaves,
unraveling in their hearts
a scheme about pain.
When God first thought of night
He didn't think about sleep.
So be it, God said, I will be happy.
But they were multitudes.
A native of Berlin, Zach went to England, earning
came to Israel at the age of his doctorate at the Univer-
five in 1935. He was closely sity of Essex in 1968. Dur-
associated with the Israeli ing those years he was the
theater until 1967 and has London correspondent and
translated some of the most editor for the Jewish Tele-
important productions. He graphic Agency.
To a Student in Jerusalem
The small, stifling room follows
ten steep, iron steps, followed by
a sharp, hot splinter
of moon. And in between,
sticky light as if smeared on walls
by the hamsin*, too listless even to stir
the laundry hanging from the tenements.
The echo of each movement returns you
to yourself—vague silhouette—as to a lullaby.
You remember and accept again
the body on the chair, head leaning
on the table, a finger
in the dust of darkness.
This is the breathing space between one solitude
and another, an oppressive reading
in a book that recedes from you—from this
momentary rest between demand
and slackness—moving out
into the open night
that knows you instantly by your hesitations.
*hamsin: a hot, dry and oppressive wind of the Middle East.
Translator Peter Ever- taken in by conventions of
wine notes with deep appre- sentiment or piety.
ciation a preface impres-
"A tenacious ironist, de-
sively evaluative of Zach, eply aware of human isola-
stating:
tion and the elaborate illu-
"The poems of Natan sions we construct as our
Zach share something of the refuges (the refuge of poetry
astringent style that has included), his characteristic
become familiar in the dis- attitude is 'Be careful . . .
tressed literature of post- Don't expect.' His reticence
war modernism. Having becomes a way of holding
been subjected to extraordi- things in check, an integrity
nary historical pressures, that is both a literary posi-
they are guarded in tone, tion and a personal response
oblique, frequently satiric to experience."
and pointed with wit, delib-
Such is the genius of an
erately reductive.
eminent poet who now is
" 'It's the salt in me that certain to be welcomed
talks,' Zach says in one of among the admired cultural
his poems, a distillation leaders who shed glory on
clearly antidotal to the Israel and the Jewish
overtly national and people.
ideological poetry that, in
his words, had satisfied 'a Many Protesters
previous generation's
TEL AVIV (JTA) — One
thirtst for grand certain-
Israeli in five has taken part
ties.' "
in a demonstration, accord-
"There are few certain- ing to a study undertaken
ties, grand or otherwise, to by Bar-Ilan University pro-
hold fast to in his work. To fessor Shmuel Lehman.
follow the movement of a
It showed that 21 percent
Zach poem is to' follow a of all Israelis had demon-
nervous and analytical in- strated, compared with 11
telligence that refuses to be percent in the U.S.