Meir Wieseltier

• Name — Meir Wieseltier • Born — 8 March 1941 • Birthplace — Moscow, Soviet Union • Died — 30 March 2023 • Place of death — Ramat Gan, Israel • Occupation — poet, translator, journalist • Language — Hebrew • Native Name — מאיר ויזלטיר

Meir Wieseltier was born in Moscow in 1941, shortly before the German invasion of Russia. He was taken to Novosibirsk in southwestern Siberia by his mother and two older sisters. His father was killed while serving in the Red Army in Leningrad. After two years in Poland, Germany, and France, the family immigrated to Israel. Wieseltier grew up in Netanya. In 1955, he moved to Tel Aviv, where he has lived ever since. He published his first poems at the age of eighteen. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the early 1960s, he joined a group known as the Tel Aviv Poets. He was co-founder and co-editor of the literary magazine Siman Kriya, and a poetry editor for the Am Oved publishing house.

Wieseltier published 13 volumes of verse. He translated English, French, and Russian poetry into Hebrew. His translations include four of Shakespeare's tragedies, as well as novels by Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, E.M. Forster, and Malcolm Lowry. Wieseltier often wrote in the first person, assuming the role of a moralist searching for values in the midst of chaos. He penned powerful poems of social and political protest in Israel. His voice is alternately anarchic and involved, angry and caring, trenchant and lyric. Wieseltier was a poet in residence at the University of Haifa.