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Although Uri Zvi Grinberg had published poetry in both Hebrew and Yiddish from 1912 onward, it was with the appearance of the Yiddish volume Mefisto in 1921 and his Albatros in 1922–1923 that the new idiom, expressionism was introduced. In seeking to explain the transformation of Uri Zvi Grinberg from a minor romantic lyric poet in Yiddish and Hebrew into an Expressionist bard who emerged in the 1921 Mefisto, critics have advanced a number of elaborate and sometimes contradictory theories. His own special “creative force” in interplay with the highly eclectic dynamic of Yiddish modernism, spurred a turning point, which witnessed the return of his artistic attention, as of his confreres to the realities of the phenomenal world, in confrontation with symbolism (aestetic romanticist) and impressionist art.

Uri Zvi Grinberg (1894–1981) lived at the crossroads of Jewish history, at a time when the Zionist movement was ambitiously caught in a process of bringing about a radical transformation aimed to alter the landscape and map of the history of the Jewish people and the individual, creating a new people and a new man. Of all Hebrew poets in the 20th century Uri Zvi Grinberg was the most politically committed. His political passion and struggle were at the very foundation of his poetry, profoundly imbued with the sense of his mission, rejecting violently an aesthetic value, a dwelling essence, detached from ideological interest and the messiness of history. He was drawn towards radical Zionist politics: active Hebrew messianism and messianic Hebraism. He understood Zionism as a secular messianic movement, trying to turn it into a political ideology, and trying to propose not only a program for a new understanding of Jewish history but also new guiding principles for Zionist activity.

The new Hebrew culture which began to crystallize in the land of Israel from the end of the last century, is a successful event of “cultural planning”. During a relatively short period of time a little group of “cultural planners” succeeded in creating a system which in a significant way was adapted to the requested Zionist ideology. Eliezer Ben Yehudah immigrated to the land in 1881 and hitched his wagon to the hard work of the renewal of the spoken Hebrew language. The decision to establish Hebrew as a spoken language in the last two decades of the 19th century was not generally agreed upon nor accepted, even by central figures who participated in the creation of the new-old Hebrew language.

Until the 19th century and to a certain extent, somewhat into the 20th century, most adherents of traditional, orthodox Judaism were reluctant about, or indifferent towards the active realistic Messianism of Maimonides who averred that only the servitude of the Jews to foreign kings separates this world from the world to come. It follows that important sections of Jewry opposed the budding Zionist idea. Zionism was an abomination in that it would substitute a purely human form of redemption for a redeemer sent by God, and therefore appeared to incite rebellion against God. Rabbi Kook’s teaching was an innovative interpretation of Zionism, not in terms of halakha, Jewish law, but in terms of the Jewish religion as a belief system. He tried to understand the secular Zionist world view, attempted to see redemption as a multi-step process, visualized the Land of Israel as a spiritual centre, and imbued its centrality, although profanely based, with religious significance.