Yizhar, S.

▪ 2007

Yizhar Smilansky 

      Israeli writer and scholar (b. Sept. 27, 1916, Rehovot, British-mandated Palestine [now in Israel]—d. Aug. 21, 2006, Meishar, Israel), was one of Israel's earliest and most richly lyrical Hebrew novelists. Although Yizhar was a devout Zionist, he did not shy away from portraying the painful and often cruel effects that the creation and defense of Israel had on the Palestinian people, as well as the ethical weakness of individuals who yielded to the group mentality that condoned this cruelty, particularly young Israeli soldiers such as those in his early stories “ha-Shavui” (“The Prisoner”) and “Sipur Hirbet Hizʿah” (“The Story of Hirbet Hizah”). Yizhar was an intelligence officer during Israel's 1948 War of Independence, and between 1949 and 1967 he represented David Ben-Gurion's Mapai (later Rafi) party in the Knesset (parliament). After a 30-year self-imposed hiatus from writing fiction—during which he taught education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1969–84) and Hebrew literature at Tel Aviv University (1982–2006)—Yizhar returned with the novel Mikdamot (1992, “Foretellings”) and followed that with several more. In 1959 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Literature for his epic novel of young men in wartime, Yeme Tsiklag (“Days of Ziklag”).

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