Ban on Yonah Wallach's works lifted
Poet’s former partner, Yuval Rivlin, who holds two-thirds of Wallach’s inheritence, had previously banned all use of her work. On Sunday he reversed his decision due to press coverage
When Yuval Rivlin’s rabbi instructed him to ban the poems of Yonah Wallach from being used, Rivlin, who had previously been secular, complied. Since then, a legal battle has raged for years between Rivlin and Nira Shnezer, the deceased poet’s sister, who holds the rest of the rights to her work.
In an interview with Ynet, Shnezer spoke of Rivlin’s attempt to sensor her sister’s work.
“He wants to erase everything. He has become ultra-religious, and has followed his rabbi’s advice, deciding that it is forbidden to release her (Wallach’s) poems, which he considers to be an abomination," she said.
"It is intolerable that he forbid the use of her songs. Her work should be heard, learned, and written as much as possible, otherwise it will be lost.”
A few days ago Rivlin sent a letter to ACUM (Association of Writers and Poets) in which he reversed the ban on the poet’s work.
“This was certainly a surprising step,” Acum Head Yorik Ben-David said. “The ban was a sweeping move, and its cancellation was equally all-embracing. Yuval didn’t explain in his letter what caused him to change his mind, but we have no doubt that the press attention helped."
Artists' life-support machine
Ben-David said the episode has ended that with the reversal of the ban, but added that "moral problems still exist in relation to the abilities of owners of art that is not their own to steal public works that were left behind by their creators, following their deaths.”
“No one other than the artist has the right to unplug creative works from their life-support machine, which is interaction with the world," he said.
"I repeat my warning about the existing danger of the placing of cultural treasures in hands that are not those that did not creat them.”
