{"id":186738,"date":"2026-02-23T16:13:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T14:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=186738"},"modified":"2026-02-25T12:46:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T10:46:03","slug":"yehuda_amichai_u2_wildpeace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/yehuda_amichai_u2_wildpeace\/","title":{"rendered":"Yehuda Amichai, U2 and the Pope Ask for \u201cWildpeace\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two years before his death, the poet Yehuda Amichai was interviewed<\/a> on what was still known back then as Channel 1 in Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man who had devoted his life to the pursuit of peace attempted to describe what peace meant to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spoiler alert: there are no wolves residing with lambs here, nor leopards sharing apartments with goats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe in the necessity of peace so deeply, that I want to lower it \u2014 lower the bar,\u201d Amichai told interviewer Ram Evron. \u201cThe expectations should be to postpone the next war. Peace and love will come later, but first of all \u2014 postpone the next war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, Amichai\u2019s peace was completely alien to ceremonies and formal agreements. \u201cBecause if you make too many performances and praises and celebrations and embraces out of peace,\u201d he explained in the interview, \u201cpeople will lose patience and a new war will begin. Postponing the next war \u2014 that is the most important thing. The loftier things will come afterward, on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"559
Yehuda Amichai, 1970, the Aliza Auerbach Archive at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

And here, as I understand it, lies the message the poet conveys in \u201cWildpeace.\u201d This \u201cwildpeace\u201d is a different kind of peace \u2014 a \u201cnatural\u201d peace, a peace devoid of ceremony and without fanfare. A \u201clight\u201d peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bit of historical background: On Friday, August 7, 1970, the War of Attrition officially came to an end. It was a conflict that stretched over three years between Israel and neighboring countries, often at low intensity, but it still managed to claim thousands of lives.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Ceasefire\"
The ceasefire arranged in the “Rogers Plan” put an end to the War of Attrition. The Australian Jewish News, <\/a><\/em>August 7,<\/em> 1970<\/a>, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

There was no actual peace here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was merely a pause in the fighting \u2014 one that, as we know in retrospect, would last only until the next campaign in October, 1973: the Yom Kippur War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, less than two months later, Yehuda Amichai published the first version of \u201cWildpeace\u201d in Haaretz<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Haaretz30sep1970\"
Wildpeace<\/em> (Shalom Bar<\/em>) in the original Hebrew, published in <\/a>Haaretz<\/em>, September 30, 1970<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Wildpeace<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not the peace of a cease-fire
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,
but rather
as in the heart when the excitement is over
and you can talk only about a great weariness.
I know that I know how to kill, that makes me an adult.
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.
A peace
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be
light, floating, like lazy white foam.
A little rest for the wounds – who speaks of healing?
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation
to the next, as in a relay race:
the baton never falls.)

Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.<\/em>


Translation by Chana Bloch<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the proximity in time between the end of that war and the publication of this poem entirely coincidental? Did that lull, after years of warfare, finally offer \u201crest for the wounds\u201d? Does the word \u201ccease-fire\u201d in the opening line refer to the ceasefire that ended the War of Attrition? I do not like to interpret poems. I will leave that to you, the readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months later, in 1971, Amichai published the poem again in his book But Not in Order to Remember<\/a><\/em>. This final version now included the line: \u201cAnd my son plays with a toy gun that knows how to open and close its eyes and say, Mama.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The years pass. In fact, twenty-three years pass before the poem returns to the headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yehuda Amichai received a special invitation from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin \u2014 an invitation to join him at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, held on December 10, 1994. Amichai, a man identified with the peace camp, accepted the invitation. He participated in the ceremony and read to the audience from his poems, including \u201cWildpeace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And perhaps there was something faintly jarring about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For while Amichai speaks in the poem of peace \u201cwithout
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp\u201d used in official treaties, in reality he was participating in a prize ceremony honoring leaders who had signed exactly these types of agreements with precisely these types of stamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Amichai provided an answer for that as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about his choice of the poem \u201cWildpeace,\u201d he replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wrote this poem more than twenty years ago, before the first peace treaty with Egypt. At that time peace was only a vision. History has taught us that life is too short to wait for natural peace. Nature has to be helped and protected like wildflowers. That is what the leaders of the two nations are doing now with great courage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"3689
Yehuda Amichai and his son pushing a car, 1985. The Aliza Auerbach Archive at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Another thirty-two years pass, and the poem once again returns to the headlines. This time, before an audience of billions, when the Pope himself quotes the poem in his Christmas sermon at the Vatican. We were left only slightly disappointed that Leo XIV did not mention Amichai by name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two months later, the poem transitioned from the realm of Catholic liturgy into the world of rock and roll, when the iconic Irish band U2 featured it on their latest EP, Days of Ash<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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