Fu Hao, one of the earliest systematic translators of Amihai's poems, has repeatedly mentioned an exaggerated statement: Israeli soldiers must bring two things to the battlefield, one is luggage, and the other is Amihai's poems.
"In the past 20 years, he should have won the Nobel Prize in Literature every year." On February 10, 2000, Jonathan Wilson commented on yehuda Amichai who died soon in The New York Times. "But he knows what Scandinavian judges care about. No matter what his personal political views are, although he is undoubtedly a dove, he comes from the wrong side. "
In other words, Amihai must pass the political examination if he wants to win the prize, but the political examination is related to his origin, and coming from Israel itself is an unacceptable obstacle.
He is a pacifist, but not an anti-war activist. He is well aware of the suffering brought by war and thinks that war is sometimes inevitable. In his later years, he said, "My slogan, so to speak, has always been: not what it is, but what it is not. The ideal is no longer peace, but no war. " He did not shy away from politics, but he was never influenced by it and refused to be promoted to the high position of Israeli national poet many times. He said that he could not inspire people like the Israeli poet Natan altman, and he only represented himself.
Mahmoud Darwish, a famous Palestinian poet, interpreted the Arab-Israeli conflict as "a struggle between two memories", and Amihai won his respect.
"His poems challenged me because we wrote about the same land." Darwesh described the literary/political relationship between him and Amihai as follows: "He wants to use the scenery and history according to his own needs, which is based on my destroyed identity. So there is competition between us: who is the master of this land language? Who loves it more? Who writes better? "
Amihai is modest and low-key. After becoming famous, he has kept a simple life, consciously staying away from politics, even the literary world, not helping or faction, and not engaging in circles. Fu Hao was in close contact with him. After Amihai died, he sincerely described his impression as "like his father".
Besides his personal achievements in poetry, Amihai also made great contributions to modern Hebrew and Israeli literature.
Hebrew literature has a long history of 3000 years, but Israeli literature has only a history of 60 years. The dating of literature has to depend on political events, that is, the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948. Israeli literature-refers to the Hebrew creation of Israeli writers, which began in.
The first generation of Israeli nationals came from all over the world, mainly Jewish immigrants from European countries, and spoke various languages. Thanks to the unremitting efforts of people of insight among Zionists in the19th century, Hebrew was revived from a "dead" language that had long since retired from daily life and was only used in religious life. But the vitality of language lies not only in grammar and vocabulary, but also in great literary works to establish the expressive force, depth of meaning and breadth of use of this new language. Amihai is to modern Hebrew what Goethe is to German, Cervantes is to Spanish and Chaucer is to English. His literary practice with the "Palmer generation" writers not only laid the foundation of Israeli new literature, but also defined the possibilities of modern Hebrew as literature and even secular language. More importantly, his works highlight the rare perspective of the world in traditional Hebrew poetry, instead of simply describing communication with God, love for home, God and father, or narrow love poems, and lamentations recalling the historical suffering of Jews.