At the Hub

At the Hub
by Uri Zvi Greenberg
Book cover
Original title	בַּעֲבִי הַשִּׁיר: מבחר שירים, tr. Ba-'avi ha-shir: Mivhar shirim
Cover artist	Beno Rothenberg David Tartakover
Country	Israel
Language	Hebrew
Subject(s)	20th century Christianity Culture of Europe Emotion Europe Everyday life Far-right politics History History of Europe History of the Jews in Europe Human sexuality The Holocaust Israel Jewish culture Jewish history Jews Judaism Liberty Loneliness Melancholia Mental health Monarchism Politics Philosophy Psychiatry Psychology World War II
Genre(s)	Counterculture Erotic literature Existentialism Experimental literature Expressionism Historical poetry Jewish literature Lyric poetry Modernist poetry Political poetry Spiritual literature
Form	Long poem
Meter	Free verse
Rhyme scheme	Free verse
Publisher	Jerusalem: Bialik Institute
Publication date	2007 (2007) (2nd ed.: 2008 (2008))
Pages	616
ISBN	9789653429239
OCLC	232688735

At the Hub (Hebrew: בַּעֲבִי הַשִּׁיר: מבחר שירים, tr. Ba-'avi ha-shir: Mivhar shirim) is a lengthy 2007 Hebrew political poem written by Uri Zvi Greenberg and edited by Dan Miron and Greenberg's widow Aliza Greenberg–Tur-Malka. Its publishing was made possible with the help of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, the Israeli Ministry of Education, the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts, Tel Aviv, and, the Mifal HaPais Council for the Culture and Arts.

Reception

Writing for the liberal newspaper Haaretz, Ariel Hirschfeld from Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Hebrew literature department called the poem "one of the highest peaks of Hebrew poetry", and compared Greenberg's work to those of Hayim Nahman Bialik, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Dahlia Ravikovitch, James Joyce, Dr. Nathan Zach, Franz Kafka, Dr. Yitzhak Laor, W. B. Yeats, William Faulkner, Osip Mandelstam, and, Rainer Maria Rilke, "as, his work is equal to theirs," adding that the poem "is a wellspring of rare beauty and wisdom," and is "the most profound confrontation written in Hebrew with man's breakdown during the 20th century, including the dissolution of European Jewry during World War II, which is man's shattered mirror."

Also writing for Haaretz, critic Dr. Oreet Meital opined that Dr. Miron attempted, via the aforementioned footnotes, to depoliticize Greenberg's poem: "Uri Zvi Greenberg's poetry should not lose, upon moving from the fringes to the mainstream, its provocative, violent, and, paradoxical nature, for, its canonization, especially if done so tendentiously and deliberately, is a castrating mechanism working against the text's subversiveness and against the wild dimension which is part of its magic and essence. Hence, one should be wary of this whitewashing rendering Uri Zvi Greenberg anemic."

Writing for the right-leaning magazine Nativ: A Journal of Politics and the Arts, critic Dr. Yoram Beck underscored that "at a time during which talks of a clash of civilizations are common, Uri Zvi Greenberg's ideas seem relevant more and more, however, we still do not completely understand their implications," for, "Uri Zvi Greenberg's poetry is a poetry of heights, a poetry of a deep soul which demands, both from itself and from others, extraordinary demands, and, one cannot be at the presence of this poetry comfortably. This poetry, first and foremost (surprisingly!), is bestowed by a zest for life — not a hedonistic but an ecstatic one — and, it embraces all layers of life: from the mundane to the historical, from the material to the spiritual, from the erotic to the religious. Uri Zvi Greenberg constructs his poetry out of all of life. This is a poetry of complete freedom, in which the poet allows himself (this is the correct expression) to use all registers, all associations, and, all literary forms, in order to express himself," as, "this is a poetry of loneliness."

Further reading

• אלפרוביץ, ד״ר ליאור. האדישות הקוסמית לסבל ולשכול. בתוך: טיים־אאוט תל אביב, פתח תקווה: סטימצקי, גיליון 250, ב׳ עד ט׳ באלול ה׳תשס״ז/16 עד 23 באוגוסט 2007, עמ׳ 244. (in Hebrew)
• מן, ד״ר ניר. משורר החזון והכתלים החלקים. בתוך: מקור ראשון, תל אביב–יפו: ישראל היום, כ״ז בתמוז ה׳תשס״ז/13 ביולי 2007. (in Hebrew)
• פישלוב, פרופ׳ ד״ר דוד. גלות מרצון ומאונס. בתוך: ידיעות אחרונות, ראשון לציון: ידיעות אחרונות, ה׳ באב ה׳תשס״ז/20 ביולי 2007. (in Hebrew)

External links

• גרינברג–טור־מלכא, אורי צבי. בַּעֲבִי הַשִּׁיר: מבחר שירים, ע. עליזה גרינברג–טור־מלכא ופרופ׳ אמריטוס ד״ר דן מירון, עם ״פתח דבר,״ עמ׳ 15–35 מאת פרופ׳ אמריטוס ד״ר דן מירון. ירושלים: מוסד ביאליק, ה׳תשס״ז/2007, מהדורה שנייה: ה׳תשס״ט/2008, 616 עמ׳, 9789653429239. (in Hebrew)