Israeli literature
Encyclopedia
Israeli literature is literature
written in the State of Israel by Israelis. Most works classed as Israeli literature are written in the Hebrew language
, although some Israeli authors write in Yiddish, English
, Arabic
and Russian
. Arabic literature produced in Israel is often classed as Palestinian literature
.
including S.Y. Agnon, Moshe Smilansky, Yosef Haim Brenner
, David Shimoni
and Jacob Fichman
. Until World War I, Hebrew literature was centered in Eastern Europe. After the war and the Russian Revolution many Hebrew writers found their way to Palestine, so that at the time Palestinian writing was essentially a continuation of the European tradition. In 1921, 70 writers met in Tel Aviv and founded the Hebrew Writers' Association. About this time the first literary periodicals made their appearance—Ha-Adamah, edited by Brenner, and Ma'abarot, edited by Fichman. The 1920 and 1930s witnessed the emergence of Palestine as the dominant center of Hebrew literary activity. Many of the pioneers of Hebrew literature were Zionists, and eventually made their way to the Land of Israel. The great figures of the early part of the century—Bialik
, Ahad Ha-Am, Tchernichovsky
—all spent their last years in Tel Aviv, and although this was not the period of their greatest creativity, they exerted a great influence on younger Hebrew writers.
Among the earliest modern Hebrew writers was a small minority of writers who were born in the Land of Israel. This cadre includes Yitzhaq Shami
and Yehuda Burla
, Sepharadi Jews whose families migrated to the Land of Israel in the 19th and 18th centuries, respectively. The writing of this group stands out for its authentic depiction of the Arab and Jewish population of Palestine, told from the vantage point of those who grew up in its midst.
The most important writers of the first generation, S.Y. Agnon and Haim Hazaz
, were deeply rooted in their European background, and served as links between the classical writers of the early decades of the Hebrew revival and the Hebrew writers in Israel during the following generations.
For the next generation of writers, the center of focus was the land of Israel, even when they were writing about other parts of the world. Their framework was the period of aliyah
and, very often, life in the kibbutz
. Among the outstanding names are Uri Zvi Greenberg
and Avraham Shlonsky
, who found in Erez Israel the antidote to the rootlessness of the Diaspora.
The third generation of writers emerged around the time of the Israeli war of independence. Its key figures (S. Yizhar
, Moshe Shamir
, Hanoch Bartov
, Haim Gouri
, Benjamin Tammuz
, Aharon Megged
) were all sabras
or had been brought to the country at an early age. Strong influences now came in from other countries, especially Western. A group called the "Canaanites" even sought to deny the connection between Israelis and Jews elsewhere. But after 1948, a feeling of emptiness and of searching for new values was leading to experiments in exploring the Jewish past.
The subsequent generation of the 1960s (A. B. Yehoshua
, Amos Oz
, Natan Yonatan
, Yoram Kaniuk
, Yaakov Shabtai
) has endeavoured to place Israeli culture within a world context and stresses not so much the unique aspects of Jewish life and Israel as the universal. This school of writers often identifies itself with the protest literature of other countries.
The following generation, writers who were born in the 1960s and 1970s and made their debut in the 1980s and 1990s, examined the basic questions of Jewish-Israeli existence by exposing the collective tensions in individual characters and fates.
Yiddish writing in Israel can be marked by generations, similar to those in Hebrew literature. The first consisted of writers such as David Pinski
and Sholem Asch
, who passed their last years in Israel. The second generation, led by Abraham Sutzkever
, started its career in Eastern Europe but continued in Israel. The third generation was centered on "Young Israel", a modernist
group of poets and prose writers, most of whom are kibbutz members, whose work has been influenced by the avant-garde schools of English
and French writing
.
Yiddish writing in Israel is concentrated on the Europaen Holocaust (the leading writer on this is Ka-Tzetnik), and life among new immigrants. Yiddish authors in Israel are organized in a Yiddish authors' association.
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
receives two copies of each book published in Israel. In 2004 it reported that it received 6,436 new books. Most of them were published in Hebrew, and most of those books published in Hebrew were original to the Hebrew language. Almost 8% of the 2004 crop were children's books and another 4% were textbooks. According to the type of publisher, the books were 55% commercial, 14% self-published, 10% governmental, 7% educational, and 14% published by other types of organizations.
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
written in the State of Israel by Israelis. Most works classed as Israeli literature are written in the Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, although some Israeli authors write in Yiddish, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
and Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
. Arabic literature produced in Israel is often classed as Palestinian literature
Palestinian literature
Palestinian literature refers to the Arabic language novels, short stories and poems produced by Palestinians. Forming part of the broader genre of Arabic literature, contemporary Palestinian literature is often characterized by its heightened sense of irony and the exploration of existential...
.
Hebrew writers
The foundations of modern Israel writing were laid by a group of literary pioneers from the Second AliyahSecond Aliyah
The Second Aliyah was an important and highly influential aliyah that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 40,000 Jews immigrated into Ottoman Palestine, mostly from the Russian Empire, some from Yemen....
including S.Y. Agnon, Moshe Smilansky, Yosef Haim Brenner
Yosef Haim Brenner
Yosef Haim Brenner was a Russian-born Hebrew-language author, one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew literature.-Biography:Brenner was born to a poor Jewish family in Novi Mlini, Russian Empire...
, David Shimoni
David Shimoni
David Shimoni was an Israeli poet, writer and translator.David Shimonovitch was born in Babruysk in Belarus to Nissim Shimonovitch and Malka Fridland Although he lived in Ottoman Palestine for a year in 1909, he did not immigrate to British-administered Palestine...
and Jacob Fichman
Jacob Fichman
Jacob Fichman also transliterated as Yakov Fichman , was an acclaimed Hebrew poet, essayist and literary critic.-Biography:Fichman was born in Botoşani, Romania in 1881...
. Until World War I, Hebrew literature was centered in Eastern Europe. After the war and the Russian Revolution many Hebrew writers found their way to Palestine, so that at the time Palestinian writing was essentially a continuation of the European tradition. In 1921, 70 writers met in Tel Aviv and founded the Hebrew Writers' Association. About this time the first literary periodicals made their appearance—Ha-Adamah, edited by Brenner, and Ma'abarot, edited by Fichman. The 1920 and 1930s witnessed the emergence of Palestine as the dominant center of Hebrew literary activity. Many of the pioneers of Hebrew literature were Zionists, and eventually made their way to the Land of Israel. The great figures of the early part of the century—Bialik
Bialik
Bialik was originally a Polish/Czech surname before it was adopted by the Jewish population. The name probably originated from the Polish word Biały...
, Ahad Ha-Am, Tchernichovsky
Shaul Tchernichovsky
Shaul Tchernichovsky , was a Russian-born Hebrew poet. He is considered one of the great Hebrew poets, identified with nature poetry, and as a poet greatly influenced by the culture of ancient Greece.- Life :...
—all spent their last years in Tel Aviv, and although this was not the period of their greatest creativity, they exerted a great influence on younger Hebrew writers.
Among the earliest modern Hebrew writers was a small minority of writers who were born in the Land of Israel. This cadre includes Yitzhaq Shami
Yitzhaq Shami
Yitzhaq Shami was a Hebrew writer, one of the earliest modern Hebrew literature writers in Palestine, prior to Israeli statehood. His work was unique for his period, since in contrast with the vast majority of Hebrew writers of the period he crafted his art based on characters who were either...
and Yehuda Burla
Yehuda Burla
Yehuda Burla was an Israeli author.- Biography :Burla was born in 1886 in Jerusalem, then part of the Ottoman Empire, to a Sephardi Jewish family with rabbinical roots, originating from Izmir. Until the age of 18, he had a religious education, studying at yeshiva and beth midrash...
, Sepharadi Jews whose families migrated to the Land of Israel in the 19th and 18th centuries, respectively. The writing of this group stands out for its authentic depiction of the Arab and Jewish population of Palestine, told from the vantage point of those who grew up in its midst.
The most important writers of the first generation, S.Y. Agnon and Haim Hazaz
Haim Hazaz
Haim Hazaz was an Israeli novelist.- Life :Hazaz was born in a small village in Ukraine, Russian Empire in 1898. He lived in a number of major European cities, including Kiev, Kharkiv, Moscow, Constantinople, Paris and Berlin before emigrating to the then British Mandate of Palestine in 1931....
, were deeply rooted in their European background, and served as links between the classical writers of the early decades of the Hebrew revival and the Hebrew writers in Israel during the following generations.
For the next generation of writers, the center of focus was the land of Israel, even when they were writing about other parts of the world. Their framework was the period of aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
and, very often, life in the kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
. Among the outstanding names are Uri Zvi Greenberg
Uri Zvi Greenberg
Uri Zvi Grinberg was an acclaimed Israeli poet and journalist who wrote in Yiddish and Hebrew.-Biography:Uri Zvi Grinberg was born in Bialikamin, Galicia, then Austria-Hungary, into a prominent Hasidic family. He was raised in Lemberg . Some of his poems in Yiddish and Hebrew were published...
and Avraham Shlonsky
Avraham Shlonsky
Avraham Shlonsky was a significant and dynamic Israeli poet and editor born in Russian Empire.He was influential in the development of modern Hebrew and its literature in Israel through his many acclaimed translations of literary classics, particularly from Russian, as well as his own original...
, who found in Erez Israel the antidote to the rootlessness of the Diaspora.
The third generation of writers emerged around the time of the Israeli war of independence. Its key figures (S. Yizhar
S. Yizhar
Yizhar Smilansky , better known by his pen name S. Yizhar , was an Israeli writer and a great innovator in modern Hebrew literature.His pen name was given to him by the poet and editor Yitzhak Lamdan, when in 1938 he published Yizhar's first story Ephraim Goes Back to Alfalfa in his literary...
, Moshe Shamir
Moshe Shamir
Moshe Shamir was an Israeli author, playwright, opinion writer, and public figure.-Biography:...
, Hanoch Bartov
Hanoch Bartov
Hanoch Bartov is an Israeli author and journalist.-Biography:Hanoch Helfgott was born in Petah Tikva in 1926, a year after his parents immigrated from Poland. He attended a religious school and then the Ahad Haam gymnasium. After working in diamond polishing and welding for two years, he enlisted...
, Haim Gouri
Haim Gouri
Haim Gouri is an Israeli poet, novelist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker.-Biography:Haim Gouri was born in Tel Aviv. After studying at the Kadoorie Agricultural High School, he joined the Palmach militia. In 1947 he was sent to Hungary to assist Holocaust survivors to come to Palestine...
, Benjamin Tammuz
Benjamin Tammuz
Benjamin Tammuz was an Israeli writer and artist who contributed to Israeli culture in many disciplines, as a novelist, journalist, critic, painter, and sculptor.Benjamin Tammuz was born in Soviet Russia...
, Aharon Megged
Aharon Megged
Aharon Megged is an Israeli author and playwright.-Biography:Aharon Megged was born in 1920 in Włocławek, Poland, and in 1926 immigrated with his parents to Mandate Palestine. He grew up in Ra'anana, attending the Herzliya high school in Tel Aviv...
) were all sabras
Sabra (person)
Sabra is a term used to describe a Jew born in Israeli territory; the term is also usually inclusive of Jews born during the period of the establishment of the state of Israel. The word "sabra" is Arabic and Hebrew. Immigrants to Palestine began using it in the early 1930s, according to the The...
or had been brought to the country at an early age. Strong influences now came in from other countries, especially Western. A group called the "Canaanites" even sought to deny the connection between Israelis and Jews elsewhere. But after 1948, a feeling of emptiness and of searching for new values was leading to experiments in exploring the Jewish past.
The subsequent generation of the 1960s (A. B. Yehoshua
A. B. Yehoshua
Abraham B. Yehoshua is an Israeli novelist, essayist, and playwright. His pen name is A. B. Yehoshua.-Biography:...
, Amos Oz
Amos Oz
Amos Oz is an Israeli writer, novelist, and journalist. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva....
, Natan Yonatan
Natan Yonatan
Natan Yonatan was an Israeli poet.His poems have been translated from Hebrew and published in more than a dozen languages, among them: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Yiddish....
, Yoram Kaniuk
Yoram Kaniuk
Yoram Kaniuk is an Israeli writer, painter, journalist, and theater critic.-Biography:Yoram Kaniuk was born in Tel Aviv. His father, Moshe Kaniuk, born in Ternopil, Galicia , was the first curator of Tel Aviv Museum of Art. His grandfather was a Hebrew teacher who wrote his own textbooks....
, Yaakov Shabtai
Yaakov Shabtai
Yaakov Shabtai was an Israeli novelist, playwright, and translator.-Biography:Shabtai was born in 1934 in Tel Aviv, Mandate Palestine. In 1957, after completing military service, he joined Kibbutz Merhavia, but returned to Tel Aviv in 1967....
) has endeavoured to place Israeli culture within a world context and stresses not so much the unique aspects of Jewish life and Israel as the universal. This school of writers often identifies itself with the protest literature of other countries.
The following generation, writers who were born in the 1960s and 1970s and made their debut in the 1980s and 1990s, examined the basic questions of Jewish-Israeli existence by exposing the collective tensions in individual characters and fates.
Yiddish writers
Apart from Hebrew writers, there is considerable creative productivity in Israel in other languages, notably in Yiddish. Before World War II, Warsaw, Moscow, and New York were the main centers of Yiddish activity. In Palestine there was still a certain hostility to the Yiddish language, which was felt as a challenge to the Hebrew revival. However, with World War II the whole picture changed. The European centers were liquidated by Hitler and Stalin, and the New York center declined. Immigration brought many of the leading Yiddish writers to Israel. Here the internal attitude relaxed and became friendly, in view of the Holocaust in Europe, on the one hand, and the secure position attained by Hebrew, on the other.Yiddish writing in Israel can be marked by generations, similar to those in Hebrew literature. The first consisted of writers such as David Pinski
David Pinski
David Pinski was a Yiddish language writer, probably best known as a playwright. At a time when Eastern Europe was only beginning to experience the industrial revolution, Pinski was the first to introduce to its stage a drama about urban Jewish workers; a dramatist of ideas, he was notable also...
and Sholem Asch
Sholem Asch
Sholem Asch, born Szalom Asz , also written Shalom Asch was a Polish-born American Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language.-Life and work:...
, who passed their last years in Israel. The second generation, led by Abraham Sutzkever
Abraham Sutzkever
Abraham Sutzkever was an acclaimed Yiddish poet. The New York Times wrote that Sutzkever was "the greatest poet of the Holocaust."-Biography:...
, started its career in Eastern Europe but continued in Israel. The third generation was centered on "Young Israel", a modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
group of poets and prose writers, most of whom are kibbutz members, whose work has been influenced by the avant-garde schools of English
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
and French writing
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
.
Yiddish writing in Israel is concentrated on the Europaen Holocaust (the leading writer on this is Ka-Tzetnik), and life among new immigrants. Yiddish authors in Israel are organized in a Yiddish authors' association.
Publication of books in Israel
By law, the Jewish National and University LibraryJewish National and University Library
The National Library of Israel , is the national library of Israel...
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
receives two copies of each book published in Israel. In 2004 it reported that it received 6,436 new books. Most of them were published in Hebrew, and most of those books published in Hebrew were original to the Hebrew language. Almost 8% of the 2004 crop were children's books and another 4% were textbooks. According to the type of publisher, the books were 55% commercial, 14% self-published, 10% governmental, 7% educational, and 14% published by other types of organizations.
Noted Israeli authors
- Aharon AppelfeldAharon Appelfeld-Biography:Appelfeld was born in the village of Zhadova near Czernowitz, Romania, now Ukraine. In 1941, when he was eight years old, the Romanian army invaded his hometown and his mother was murdered. Appelfeld was deported with his father to a concentration camp in Ukraine. He escaped and hid for...
- David Shahar
- David GrossmanDavid GrossmanDavid Grossman is an Israeli author. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and have won numerous prizes.He is also a noted activist and critic of Israeli policy toward Palestinians. The Yellow Wind, his non-fiction study of the life of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied...
- Meir ShalevMeir ShalevMeir Shalev is an Israeli writer. He is the son of the Jerusalemite poet Yitzchak Shalev. His cousin Zeruya Shalev is also a writer.- Biography :...
- Yossl Birstein, Yiddish and Hebrew
- Anton ShammasAnton Shammas-Biography:Anton Shammas was one of six children born to Hanna Shammas, a Palestinian Christian barber and shoemaker,and a Lebanese mother who moved to Fassuta in 1936 to teach French at the local girls' school...
, Arab-Christian writer - Emil Habibi, Israel PrizeIsrael PrizeThe Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
, Arab writer - Haim Be'er
- Dov Elbaum
- Michal Govrin
- Yitzhak Orpaz-AuerbachYitzhak Orpaz-Auerbach-Biography:Yitshak Orpaz was born in the Soviet Union. He immigrated to Mandate Palestine at the age of 17. He served in the British Army during the Second World War and in the Israel Defense Forces during the Israeli War of Independence. After the war he served in the regular army...
- Sami MichaelSami MichaelSami Michael is an Israeli author. Since 2001, Michael has been the President of The Association for Civil Rights in Israel .Michael was among the first in Israel to call for the creation of an independent Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel. In his novels Michael writes about the...
- Albert Suissa
- Shimon Ballas
- Eli AmirEli Amir-External links:...
- Amnon ShamoshAmnon ShamoshAmnon Shamosh is an Israeli author and poet.Shamosh was born in 1929 in Aleppo, Syria. In his childhood he immigrated to Palestine and participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War in a Palmach unit. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a founder of kibbutz Ma'ayan Barukh, where he...
- Yitzhak Ben-Ner
- Yehoshua KenazYehoshua Kenaz-Biography:Glass was born in Petah Tikva, in the British Mandate of Palestine, in 1937. During the Second World War, his father worked for the British Army, and for a while the family moved to Haifa. He learned to play the violin. His brother Hilik was born when he was thirteen. He was drafted to...
- Yonat and Alexander Sened
- Nava SemelNava SemelNava Semel is an Israeli and internationally published author, playwright, screen writer and translator.-Biography:Nava Semel was born 1954 in Yaffo, daughter of Mimi and the late Itzhak Artzi, both Holocaust survivors. She is the younger sister of Israeli Rock star Shlomo Artzi.She has an MA in...
- Amalia Kahana-CarmonAmalia Kahana-CarmonAmalia Kahana-Carmon is an Israeli author, educator, and recipient of the Israel Prize for literature ....
- Hannah Bat-Shahar
- Shulamith HarevenShulamith HarevenShulamith Hareven was an Israeli author and essayist.She was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a Zionist family. She immigrated to the Land of Israel with her parents in 1940....
- Shulamit Lapid
- Ruth AlmogRuth Almog-Life:Almog was born 15 May 1936 in Petah Tikva, Israel to parents who immigrated from Hamburg in 1933. She studied at David Yellin Teachers College, and at Tel Aviv University...
- Savyon LiebrechtSavyon LiebrechtSavyon Liebrecht is one of Israel's best-known authors, although less known outside Israel. Born as the oldest child in Munich, Germany to Polish Holocaust survivors as Sabine Sosnowski, she moved to Israel in 1950....
- Batya GurBatya GurBatya Gur was an Israeli writer. Her specialty was detective fiction.-Biography:Batya Gur was born in Tel Aviv in 1947 to parents who survived the Holocaust. She earned a master's degree in Hebrew literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before writing her first detective novel at the...
- Eleonora Lev
- Yehudit Hendel
- Lea AiniLea AiniLea Aini , is an Israeli author and poet, who has written over twenty books.Her 2009 novel The Rose of Lebanon, her eighth prose book, deals with the stories that a female soldier volunteer tells about her childhood as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor from Saloniki.-Awards:*In 1988, Eini won...
- Nurit ZarchiNurit ZarchiNurit Zarchi is an Israeli poet and author for adults and children....
- Michael Bar-ZoharMichael Bar-ZoharDr Michael Bar-Zohar is an Israeli historian, novelist and politician. His World War II-era nonfiction and fiction works have been published in English, French, Hebrew, and other languages. He was also a member of the Knesset on behalf of the Alignment and Labor Party during the 1980s and early...
, Hebrew detective fiction - Amnon DanknerAmnon DanknerAmnon Dankner is an Israeli newspaper editor and author. He was the editor of the mass-circulation daily Maariv for six years.-Biography:Amnon Dankner was born in Jerusalem. His parents were the owners of Cafe Allenby. The family was secular but he attended a religious school, Ma'aleh, where he...
- Ram OrenRam OrenRam Oren is a popular Israeli author who has sold an unprecedented 1 million books in Hebrew.Oren started writing books only at a relatively advanced age. At age 15, he began his journalistic career as a messenger boy for Yediot Aharonot. He advanced to editorship of important sections of the paper...
- Amnon Jacont
- Judith Katzir
- Etgar KeretEtgar KeretEtgar Keret is an Israeli writer known for his short stories, graphic novels, and scriptwriting for film and television.-Personal Life:Keret was born in Ramat Gan, Israel in 1967. He is a third child to parents who survived the Holocaust. He lives in Tel Aviv with his wife, Shira Geffen, and...
- Orly Castel-BloomOrly Castel-BloomOrly Castel-Bloom is an Israeli author.Orly Castel-Bloom was born in north Tel Aviv in 1960, to a family of Egyptian Jews. Until the age of three, she had French nannies and spoke only French...
- Gadi Taub
- Irit LinurIrit Linur-Biography:Irit Linur was married to Alon Ben David, Senior Defense Correspondent for Israel Channel 10 and Middle East Correspondent for Jane's Defense Weekly.-Literary career:Linur started her writing career as a satirical columnist in local newspapers...
- Mira Magen
- Shimon Zimmer
- Lily Perry
- Yitzhak LaorYitzhak LaorYitzhak Laor, is an Israeli poet, author and journalist. He is the author of . He is mostly known for his poetry of political protest, particularly about the Lebanese War of 1982 and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories...
- Itamar LevyItamar LevyItamar Levy is an Israeli author. He published six books in Hebrew, some were translated into various languages. Levy is mostly known as a book-finder who helps in locating hard-to-find books, and books that the requester has only little details on. As a part of this service Levy participates in...
- Yoel HoffmannYoel HoffmannYoel Hoffmann is a contemporary Jewish author, editor, scholar and translator. He is currently a professor of Japanese poetry, Buddhism, and philosophy at the University of Haifa in Israel and lives in Galilee.-Biography:...
- Dorit Rabinyan
- Yael Hadaya
- Alon HiluAlon HiluAlon , is an Israeli novelist.His first novel, Death of a Monk , is based on a historical blood libel against the Jews in Damascus, Syria, and offers an original homosexual interpretation for the historical events...
- Dudu Bossi
- Eshkol NevoEshkol NevoEshkol Nevo , is an Israeli writer who has published a collection of short stories, two novels and a work of non-fiction. One of his novels, Homesick, was awarded the Book Publishers Association Gold Prize and the FFI-Raymond Wallier Prize at the Salon du Livre...
- Moshe Ophir
- Efrat Danon
- Alex Epstein (Israeli writer)Alex Epstein (Israeli writer)Alex Epstein is an Israeli writer, known for his short-short stories. He moved to Israel at the age of eight. Epstein has published three novels and four collections of stories...
- Maya Arad
- Shimon AdafShimon AdafShimon Adaf is an Israeli poet and author born in Sderot.Shimon Adaf's first book of poetry, Icarus' Monologue won a prize from the Israeli Ministry of Education. In 1996–2000, Adaf studied at Tel Aviv University, simultaneously writing articles on literature, film and rock music for Israeli...
- Yuval Shimoni
- Avner Shavit
- Benny ZifferBenny ZifferBenny Ziffer is an Israeli author and journalist.-Life and career:Ziffer was born in Tel Aviv. His parents, Heinz and Nira , immigrated to Israel from Turkey in 1949. Ziffer studied French literature and political science. He is married to Irit, and they have three children...
- Yossi Avni-LevyYossi Avni-LevyYossi Avni-Levy is an Israeli writer and diplomat, and spokesperson of the MoFA. He has served at various posts in Israeli embassies in Berlin, Bonn, Belgrade, and Warsaw....
Children's literature
- Gila AlmagorGila AlmagorGila Almagor is an Israeli actress, film star, and author.-Biography:Gila Almagor was born four months after the death of her father, Max Alexandrowitz, a Jewish immigrant from Germany who was killed by an Arab sniper while working as a policeman in Haifa...
- Yehuda Atlas
- Yemima Avidar-TchernovitzYemima Avidar-TchernovitzYemima Tchernovitz-Avidar was an Israeli author whose works became classics of modern Hebrew children’s literature.-Life:Tchernovitz-Avidar was born in Vilna, Lithuania in October 1909...
- Tamar Bergman
- Daniella Carmi
- Alona FrankelAlona FrankelAlona Frankel is a Polish-born Israeli author and illustrator of children's books.She was born in Cracow, Poland and hid throughout the Holocaust, in 1949 she moved to Israel.-Biography:...
- Yehonatan GeffenYehonatan GeffenYehonatan Geffen also known as Yonatan Gefen, is an Israeli author, poet, songwriter, journalist, and playwright.- Biography :...
- Nira Harel
- Natali Lipin
- Uriel OfekUriel OfekUriel Ofek was an Israeli writer for children and youth, Editor, Lyricist, poet, translator and children's literature scholar.-Biography:...
- Dvora OmerDvora OmerDvora Omer is an Israeli author, born in 1932 in Kibbutz Ma'oz Haim in Mandatory Palestine.-Biography:Omer's parents divorced when she was a child, and when she was 11 years old, her mother was killed in a training accident, in the Hagana, a pre-state military organization. Her father, Moshe...
children and youth, awarded Israel Prize (2006) - Dorit Orgad: pre-teens and young adults
- Uri OrlevUri OrlevUri Orlev is an award-winning Israeli children's author and translator of Polish-Jewish origin.-Biography:Uri Orlev, born Jerzy Henryk Orlowski, was born in Warsaw, Poland. He survived the war years in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he was sent to after his...
- Galila Ron-Feder AmitGalila Ron-Feder Amit- Biography :Born in Haifa, Israel and studied in the Hebrew Reali School and later Hebrew University of Jerusalem.She was married to Avi Feder and after their divorce married Meshulam Amit.She has 3 children....
pre-teens and young adults - Smadar Shir: pre-teens and young adults
- Ephraim SidonEphraim SidonEphraim Sidon is a renowned Israeli author, playwright and satirist, cherished for both for his satirical work and his children's books.-Biography:...
: satire, often writing for adults under the guise of children's books - Michal SnunitMichal Snunit- Biography :Michal Snunit was born on a Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh in Israel, of which her Belgian-born parents were founding members. She studied Hebrew literature and theater at Tel Aviv University and has worked in agriculture, with kibbutz children and later as a journalist in a daily newspaper....
: short illustrated books, allegories on spirituality and emotion - Miriam Yalan-ShteklisMiriam Yalan-ShteklisMiriam Yalan-Shteklis was an Israeli writer and poet famous for her children's books. Her surname, Yalan, was an acronym based on her father’s name, Yehuda Leib Nissan.-Biography:...
See also
- List of Hebrew language authors
- List of Hebrew language poets
- List of Hebrew language playwrights
- Jewish American literatureJewish American literatureJewish American Literature holds an essential place in the literary history of the United States. It encompasses traditions of writing in English, primarily, as well as in other languages, the most important of which has been Yiddish...