Background
Haim Gouri was born in Tel Aviv.
Haim Gouri was born in Tel Aviv.
After studying at the Kadoorie Agricultural High School, he joined the Palmach and completed a commander"s course. Gouri studied literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Sorbonne in Paris.
He participated in the bombing of a British radar station being used to track Aliyah Bet ships carrying illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine. In 1947 he was sent to Hungary to assist Holocaust survivors to emigrate to Mandate Palestine. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War he was a deputy company commander in the Palmach"s Negev Brigade.
As a journalist he worked for Lamerhav and later, Davar.
Gouri"s first published poem, Sea Voyage, appeared in Mishmar, edited by Abraham Shlonsky, in 1945. His first complete volume of poetry, Flowers of Fire, was published in 1949 following the Israeli War of Independence.