Batya Ouziel

Batya Ouziel (; 1 March 1934 – 6 January 2018) was an Israeli handicrafter and television presenter. She learnt the crafts of embroidery and knitting beginning at an early age and began doing this while serving under instructors from the Gadna in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Ouziel taught art and art history in educational institutes and became well known in Israel for broadcasting a weekly section called In Four Hands with Batya Ouziel about handicrafts over the radio in the 1960s. She broadened her reach when she presented approximately 300 editions of the educational television programme Crafts with Batya Ouziel between 1974 and 1982.

Early life Ouziel was born in Tel Aviv on 1 March 1934. her mother Sonia (who died after being run over by a British lorry in 1941) was an agronomist by training. Her father subsequently sent her to live in Geva for three starting when she was nine years old. Ouziel was unable to assimilate well in the city's elite society of the mid-1940s. She frequently suffered from migraines and disliked the treatment she received from the locals.

Ouziel returned to Tel Aviv when her father remarried; she continued her education at New High School. and was educated first at the Histadrut's Painting and Sculpture Studio in Tel Aviv from 1950 to 1951 and then at the Painting Teachers' College in the same city in 1954. she learnt these crafts when she served under instructors from the Gadna in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and began advertising herself as a waste exploiter during military service.

From 1974 to 1982, she became better known when she appeared on approximately 300 editions of the educational television programme Crafts with Batya Ouziel which were compiled into 12-volume books. She accepted and ended up doing an advertisement for a cottage.

Her husband's grandfather's brother was the first chief rabbi of Israel, Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel.

Legacy

Ran Boker and Ami Friedman of Ynet described Ouziel as becoming "synonymous with handicrafts made of improvised materials and the "do-it-yourself" priesthood." Mako calls her "a cultural and memory icon of childhood that warms the hearts of an entire generation in Israel."