Esther Raab

Esther Raab (1894-1981), Israel’s first “native” woman poet, was born in Petah Tikva to one of the founding families of one of the first agricultural settlements in Eretz Israel. In 1913 she joined the group that founded Kibbutz Degania. During World War I she joined a workers’ commune and in 1919 she worked as a teacher and began to write poetry. For five years she lived in Cairo, where she married, and from there she traveled to Paris. In 1922 her first poems were published. Eventually Raab settled in Tel Aviv, where her home became a center for writers and painters. The author of both prose and poetry, she is among the finest literary representatives of the pioneering generation.