Tuvya Ruebner

Slovakian born Israeli poet, editor, professor and literary translator

Tuvya Ruebner (30 January 1924 29 July 2019) was an Israeli poet who wrote in Hebrew and German, and he also translated poems from Hebrew into German and from German into Hebrew. In addition, he was the editor of numerous literary books, a scholar, a teacher, and a photographer. Ruebner was Emeritus Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Haifa University and Oranim College. The recipient of many literary awards in Israel, Germany and Austria, he was awarded the Israel Prize for Poetry in 2008 the highest accolade the State of Israel bestows. The jury awarding that prize described Ruebner as "among the most important Hebrew poets", and his poetry as "restrained, polished and intellectual nourished by the ancient strata of Hebrew poetry and the best of the tradition of Central European poetry."

Kurt Tobias Ruebner (later Tuyva Ruebner) was born in Pressburg – now Bratislava, in Slovakia. His parents were German speaking Jews. He attended the local school until 1939 when Slovakia, which had become a puppet state of Nazi Germany, banished Jewish pupils from schools. Consequently, Ruebner left school at the age of 15, thus ending his formal education in the ninth grade. Acquiring coveted permission papers, Ruebner was able to leave Slovakia in 1941. Together with a group of youth, he made his way to Palestine, leaving his parents and sister behind. He was settled in Kibbutz Merchavia in northern Israel, where he lived for the rest of his life. His parents, his sister and other relatives were murdered in Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp in 1942. In 1944 Ruebner married Ada Klein, also from Slovakia, with whom he had a daughter. In 1950, Ada was killed in a traffic accident, which also left Ruebner severely injured. Unable to be involved in agricultural labour, Ruebner was appointed librarian of the kibbutz. Sometime later he met the Israel born pianist Galila Yisraeli and they married in 1953. The couple had two sons. In 1983, their youngest son, Moran, disappeared on a trip to Ecuador. All attempts to find him thus far have failed. Between 1963 and 1966 the family lived in Switzerland where Ruebner served as Secretary General of the Swiss branch of the Jewish Agency. On his return in1966, Ruebner began teaching first at Oranim College, and later at Tel Aviv University as well as at Haifa University. In 1974 he was appointed Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Haifa University and Oranim College. Ruebner retired as Professor Emeritus at Haifa University in 1993. Indeed, she was instrumental in publishing his first Hebrew poem, which appeared in the Davar newspaper in 1950. Ruebner's first book of Hebrew poetry was published in 1957, and his first one in German in 1990. In 1955 he had already won the Anne Frank Prize for poetry. Many other awards followed for example, The Theodore Kramer Prize in Austria, and the Israeli Prime Minister's Award for Creative work. All culminated in the award of the Israel Prize of Poetry in 2008. "In the landscape of modern Hebrew poetry, Tuvia Ruebner holds a special and treasured place," writes Israeli editor and critic Israel Pinkas. "Ruebner's poetry adds new energy and clarity, artistry and sophistication."

The Jury that awarded the Israel Prize in Poetry to Ruebner in 2008 noted that interest in his works had been shown not only in Israel but also abroad – notably in Germany, but also in the US, Slovakia and Sweden. Fellow poet and literature Professor Rafi Weichert writes that Ruebner's poetry deals with the experience of living with contradictions: “The whole volume of Ruebner’s creation is his way of “keeping his balance upon the abyss, the abyss of his biography.” In the Introduction to her 2014 translations of Ruebner's poems includes examples of cultural influences that affected Ruebner's writing. In the Introduction to her later publication of Ruebner's poems, which she translated to English too, Rachel Tsvia Back offers an overview of Ruebner's long literary life. Having worked with him on the translation of those poems until a few months before his death, her account ends thus: "In the tradition of the Psalms, Ruebner's late poems marvel at the breadth given, at the day offered, and at the wonder of a word speaking from the page". All in all, the Jury awarding Ruebner the Israel Prize of Poetry in 2008 refers to him thus: “In his poetry he struggles in a personal and unique way with the individual’s suffering of loss, with the holocaust of the Jews and the difficulties of an immigrant who has two homelands." The Jury concludes: “Looking back at over fifty years of creativity it is possible to delineate Tuvya Ruebner’s poetry as enthralling, continuously renewing itself – its contents and its form, poetry that, by sustaining conversions and upheavals, attests to its strength and its enduring dynamism.” However, full fledged poetry books of such translations are a far more recent development. Rachel Tsvia Back's 2014 volume (see below) is the most extensive, but all three books listed below were published only at the beginning of the 21st century. These are the following:

Now at the Threshold: The Later Poems of Tuvia Ruebner. Introduced and translated from Hebrew by Rachel Tzvia Back. Hebrew Union College Press. 2020. Bilingual edition. Late Beauty: Tuvia Ruebner. Introduced and translated from Hebrew by Lisa Katz and Shahar Bram. Zephyr Press. 2017. In the Illuminated Dark: Selected Poems of Tuvia Ruebner. Introduced, translated from Hebrew and annotated by Rachel Tzvia Back. Hebrew Union College Press. 2014. Bilingual edition.

A Green Sun Again. Akum – CANTI1. 2007.