Analysis of "Tourists" and Connections to Jerusalem

     The poem "Tourists", written by Yehuda Amichai, is an Israeli poem that explores the relationship between tourists and the culture of a foreign nation. However, before we can begin to understand the intention of the poem, it is important to understand the author. Amichai is a renowned Israeli poet that, according to PoetryFoundation, is the most widely translated Hebrew poet amongst modern-day writers. His works have been translated into a variety of languages including English, Spanish, German, and Catalan. In general, many of Amichai's poems focus on historical events and their effect on people's lives, and as well the effect of culture on a nation. In the poem "Tourists", Amichai highlights how tourism affects the culture that pre-exists, and specifically in Jerusalem. There are certain lines that can be analyzed so that we can tell Amichai is referring to Jerusalem particularly. For example, Amichai writes "They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall" and "On the top of Ammunition Hill", which refers to significant historical sites found in Jerusalem. Knowing this, we can now take a deeper look into the meaning Amichai intends to convey in his poem. It is obvious that Amichai has grievance with tourism and the people it attracts, as he notes how insincere a lot of them seem. One line that best compliments this is "They laugh behind heavy curtains in their hotel rooms", where the tourists come to see the highlights but fail to see the cultural significance behind the landmarks, or the tragedy that accompanies it. As well, towards the end of the poem, Amichai reinforces this idea by examining a situation from a first-person perspective. He writes about a man who lives in the city, and a group of tourists that is sightseeing. The dynamic that Amichai outlines is that the tourists don't pay any attention to the man, and instead use him as a marker to sightsee the architecture from the old Roman era. However, the man wishes that they would pay more attention to him. This is representative of the earlier argument, where Amichai seems to believe that most tourists do not have an appreciation for the culture or people currently living in the place, but rather see it as a place for their own entertainment.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/yehuda-amichai 

https://canvas.trinity.edu/courses/3804/files/956369?wrap=1