Benjamin Harshav

Benjamin Harshav , born Hrushovski (Hebrew: הרושובסקי; June 26, 1928 – April 23, 2015), was a literary theorist specialising in comparative literature, a Yiddish and Hebrew poet (under pen names including H. Benjamin (Hebrew: ה. בנימין) and Gabi Daniel (Hebrew: גבי דניאל)), and an Israeli translator and editor. He served as professor of literature at the University of Tel Aviv and as a professor of comparative literature, Hebrew language and literature, and Slavic languages and literature at Yale University. He was the founding editor of the Duke University Press publication Poetics Today. He received the EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture in 2005 and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His parents were both educators: Dr Abraham Hrushovski (Hebrew surname Agasi, Hebrew: אגסי), his father, was a history teacher who taught in various gymnasiums In Vilnius and later in Haifa (died in 1973); Dvora Freidkes-Hrushovski (1896–1985), his mother, was a mathematics teacher and school headmistress in Vilnius. He had a younger sister, Eta Hrushovski (Hebrew: אטה הרושובסקי), born 1935, who died in 1968 during a trip in Turkey.

Harshav studied in a secular Yiddish school and Yiddish gymnasium. In September 1939, under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Vilnius was captured by the Red Army, then handed over to Lithuania; but again taken and annexed to the Soviet Union in August 1940. In 1941, as Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, his family fled Eastward to the Ural Mountains. He finished his senior exams in a Russian school in 1945, and in 1945–46 studied mathematics and physics at Orenburg, where he won the first prize for first-year students. Abraham Hrushovski was appointed director of an institution for Polish war orphans living in the Soviet Union, and in May 1946 the family was able to return to Poland in a special train along with the orphans. Benjamin joined the Zionist youth movement Dror, In Munich, in 1947–48, Harshav co-edited the Dror's publication "להבות".

In May 1948, Harshav immigrated to the nascent state of Israel through the illegal Aliyah Bet. His parents and sister, attempting earlier to arrive on another ship, were detained in a British camp in Cyprus and arrived later. Harshav enlisted in the Palmach and fought in the 1947–1949 Palestine war, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as part of the fifth battalion until 1949.

Academic career

1948–1986: Living in Israel From 1948 to 1986, Harshav lived in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. From 1949 to 1957, he studied for degrees in Hebrew literature, Biblical Studies, Jewish History, and Yiddish literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Meanwhile, he also founded and edited the literary journal "Likrat" (Hebrew: לקראת) with Aryeh Sivan, Moshe Dor, and Natan Zach. From 1957 to 1960 he studied comparative literature at Yale University with René Wellek.

Harshav taught Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1954 to 1957 and 1960–63. He stood at the head of the institute until 1987. After the publication was shut down, he founded Poetics Today, a quarterly journal published by Duke University Press. In 1974, he founded the series Literature, Meaning, Culture (Hebrew: ספרות, משמעות, תרבות) and served as editor-in-chief until 1986.

In 1976–77, Harshav was a fellow at the centre of advanced degrees in Hebrew literature at Oxford University. In the autumn of 1980 he was a guest professor of classical and modern Hebrew and Jewish literature at Harvard University. In the summer of 1985, he was a guest professor of comparative literature at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. From 1972, he was a member of the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel. From 1993, he was a fellow of the United States Authors Guild. From 1985 to 1991, he was a member of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA). In 1995, Harshav was chosen as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1997, Harshav received a silver medal from the University of Rome Tor Vergata along with his wife, Barbara Harshav, for his studies and translations. In 2004, he won the Koret Jewish Book Award for biographical literature, for his two-volume book about Marc Chagall, Marc Chagall and his Times. In 2000, he won the Jerusalem Prize. He won the EMET Prize in 2005 for his life's work, He translated his own work into Hebrew from Yiddish, English, and German. He also translated into English.

Awards

December 1998 – Silver Medal, University of Rome Tor Vergata (along with wife, Barbara Harshav) 29 March 2004 – Koret Jewish Book Award for Biography, Autobiography, and Literary Studies, for his book Marc Chagall and his Times 2005 – EMET Prize for Art, Science, and Culture