Yonatan Ratosh

Yonatan Ratosh (יונתן רטוש‎) was the literary pseudonym of Uriel Shelach (Hebrew: אוריאל שלח) (November 18, 1908 – March 25, 1981), an Israeli poet and journalist who founded the Canaanite movement.

In the late 1920s, Ratosh (using his birth name, Heilperin) embraced Revisionist Zionism, becoming close friends with Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and Avraham Stern.

[citation needed] Frustrated, he travelled to Paris to meet with another disillusioned Revisionist, Semitic language scholar Adia Gurevitch (A.G. Horon).

[citation needed] Adopting the pseudonym of Yonatan Ratosh,[1] he began to write poetry that "tore apart" (Hebrew: ריטש‎ - riṭṭêš) existing conventions of style, language, and culture.

While the movement founded by Ratosh was never broad, T. Carmi wrote that "its emphasis on myth and its stylistic mannerisms had considerable impact on contemporary poetry.

"[2] In an essay entitled "Ketav el ha-No'ar ha-'Ivri" (כתב אל הנער העברי‎, "Epistle to the Hebrew Youth") from 1943, Heilperin/Ratosh presented his new ideas to the Hebrew-speaking public.

In 1950, Ratosh founded and co-edited the literary journal Alef which published translations of the work of Stendhal, Camus, Shaw and O'Neill.