From hostility to literary agency: Helit Yeshurun and the afterlife of Yona Wallach

This essay explores the cultural afterlife of Yona Wallach's poetry through Helit Yeshurun's evolving relationship with the poet and her work. Framing the phenomenon as the "Wallach Effect," it examines the persistence of Wallach's voice in Israeli culture and the central role Yeshurun has played in shaping that legacy. The essay traces a trajectory from early hostility and rivalry to deep involvement in distributing her poetry, arguing that Yeshurun's engagement with Wallach is inseparable from questions of gender, authorship, and agency. Yeshurun's early creative work—her 1969 poetry collection 24 and her role in Jacques Katmor's film A Woman's Case—is read against a backdrop of heteronormative expectations and cultural misogyny. The analysis then turns to her later contributions as editor, translator, and commentator, with an emphasis on her central role in the documentary The Seven Tapes of Yona Wallach. A reading of "Jonathan," one of Wallach's most iconic poems, illuminates how Wallach's radical poetics forced Yeshurun to confront the limits of her own writing and identity.