Yeshurun's family, along with Krasnystaw's 2,000 Jews, were murdered in Belzec extermination camp in today's Poland.

His first book, Al khokhmot drakhim ("On the wisdom of roads"), was published under his birthname, Yehiel Perlmutter.

In 1952 Yeshurun published a highly controversial poem, "Pesach al Kochim", in which he compared the tragedy of the Palestinian refugees with that of the Jewish Holocaust.

His subsequent books were Re'em (a combination of the Hebrew words for "Thunder" and "Antelope"), 1961, Shloshim Amud ("Thirty Pages"), 1965, Ze Shem HaSefer ("This is the Name of the Book"), 1971, HaShever HaSuri-Afrika'i ("The Syrian-African Rift"), 1974, Kapella Kolot ("A Capella of Voices"), 1977, Sha'ar Knisa Sha'ar Yetzia ("Entrance Gate Exit Gate"), 1981, Homograph, 1985, Adon Menucha ("Mr. Rest"), 1990, and Ein Li Achshav ("I Have No Now"), 1992.

Many of Yeshurun's poems allude to the guilt he felt for having left Europe before the Holocaust, leaving his home and family behind.