Yehuda Amichai was born in Germany and immigrated to Palestine in 1936. His novels and poetry are innovative in their use of Hebrew terms. Following World War II and Israel's War of Independence in 1948, Amichai began to introduce new words of technical, legal, and administrative meaning into his poetry to replace sacral phrases. Amichai's poetry reflects the modernizing of the Hebrew language within the last 45 years. "One of Amichai's most characteristic effects in his poetry is the mingling of past and present, ancient and modern, person and place: the here and now for him inevitably recalls the past" (Judaica Book News). One of Israel's most highly regarded poets, Amichai shared the Israel Prize for Literature with Amir Gilboa in 1981.
