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Hussein Rashid (1936 - 1977) was a Palestinian poet, preacher, journalist and translator from Hebrew to Arabic. He was born in the village of Musmus in northern Palestine, and died after a fire in his apartment in New York City.
Rashid published his first collection in 1957. The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish called him "the star", who wrote about "human things" such as bread, hunger and anger.
his life
Hussein was born into a Muslim peasant family in Musmus in 1936, during the British Mandate of Palestine. He attended primary school in Umm al-Fahm, a town near his village. He was educated in the city of Nazareth and graduated from Nazareth High School. Hussein described himself as a "lax Muslim", writing once in 1961: "I neither pray nor go to the mosque knowing that I am disobeying God's will...Thousands of people like me are slack in carrying out the divine commandments. But these Thousands of disobedient did not remain about what Our pious judges who prayed and fast have silenced him.”
In 1955 he worked as a teacher in Nazareth, a profession that the Israeli critic Emil Marmorstein described as a "storm". Rashid educates the rural poor in dilapidated schoolrooms that lack sufficient textbooks. During his teaching career, he had constant conflicts with the Zionist supervisors of Arab education in Israel and with the Arab section of the National Teachers' Union.
literary career
In 1952, Hussein began writing poetry. Two years later, he published his first poetry collection. In 1957 he published in Nazareth a small volume called With Dawn. And in a short period of time, he became the first Palestinian poet in the Palestinian arena. In 1958, he became the literary editor of Al-Fajr, an Arabic-language monthly newspaper affiliated with the Histadrut Workers Union, as well as the weekly newspaper Al-Musawwar. At the time, the Iraqi Jewish critic Eliyahu Khuzum Hussein described him as "the most promising Arab poet in Israel", and "the only one interested in studying the Hebrew language" and said that he had surprised the audience of Jewish and Arab writers with his "recitation of his first poem" which he wrote in Hebrew. Sunni, published another volume in Arabic called rockets.
By 1959, he had translated many Arabic poems into Hebrew and vice versa, as well as the works of German poet Bertolt Brecht, Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba and a Persian poet. Hussein was also a member of the left-wing Israeli political party Mapam, and was the editor of its weekly Al Mirsad. In the spring of 1961, Al-Mersad became a daily publication, but shortly after the elections to the Knesset in August 1961, it returned to a weekly publication as before. Both Al-Fajr and Al-Musawwar were discontinued due to lack of funds in 1962, but the former returned to circulation in 1964. At that time, Hussein began translating the Hebrew works of the Israeli poet Haim Nachman Bialik into Arabic.
Hussein collaborated with Jewish poet Nathan Zak as co-editor and translator for The Palms and Dates, an anthology of Arabic folk songs. In the Introduction to Palms and Dates, published shortly after the 1967 war, they note the difference between the nostalgic “days of liberalism and sympathy” and the current “days of hate and violence.” Furthermore, they hoped that the anthology would promote "dialogue between societies and an appreciation of the literature of each culture".
political activity
Hussein wrote that humiliation, discrimination, and exposure to arbitrary decisions were the things that summed up the conditions of Arabs at the hands of Israel, and he often criticized David Ben-Gurion, various Israeli governments, and those in the upper echelons of the bureaucracy And some Arabs whom he considered to be collaborators with the Israeli authorities. At the same time, he made appeals to "Jewish citizens", especially those who belong to the labor parties to adhere to the universal principles of their progressive movements and to fight against the inequality that Arabs in Israel are subjected to.
While much of Hussein's writings were in line with Mapam's ideology and programme, he differed greatly with the party through his public support for Egypt's Arab nationalist president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. He accused the Arabic-speaking Voice of Israel Radio of being strongly biased against Nasser, while being positive towards Nasser's Arab opponents, including Abdel Karim Kassem of Iraq, Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia and the Saudi royal family. He emphasized that while all of these opposed Zionism, it was only Abdel Nasser who constantly developed his country, fought imperialism and took steps towards Arab unity. It is worth noting that Mapam, as a Zionist party, has opposed all the above-mentioned Arab figures. In the 1959 Knesset elections, the conflict between Nasser and Kassem was a major issue in the Arab community in Israel, leading to a split between Nasser's Arab nationalist supporters and Kassem's communist sympathizers. Hussein's articles at dawn at the time were so condemning Qassem's policies and praising Nasser that one of his articles appeared in the Egyptian weekly Akher Sa'a. Hussein entered into an argument with some of his contemporaries (such as Mahmoud Darwish) because of the dispute with the Israeli Communist Party over the national issue.
Hussein decried the negative morale of those in his generation who simply sought to make a living rather than fight for their rights. However, this capitulation and indifference was blamed not only on the Arab youth themselves, but on the environment in which they grew up, many of whom lived through the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Nakba, and the expulsion of tens of thousands from their homes. According to Hussein, the neighboring Arab countries responded to the Palestinian Nakba by replacing their old leadership. However, in the case of the Palestinians who remained in Israel, "the old leadership to control Arab society on behalf of the state was restored."
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