Lev Hakak

Lev Hakak is an Israeli-born American lawyer, academic, novelist and poet. He is a professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the author of several books on Hebrew literature. He has written four poetry collections and two novels.

Early life Lev Hakak was born in 1944 in Mandatory Palestine. His parents were Iraqi Jews who experienced pro-Nazi antisemitic sentiments in Iraq in the 1940s and emigrated to Israel in 1951–1952.

Career Hakak began his career as a poet in the early 1960s, when he published two poetry collections. In 1977, he published his first novel, The Ingathered.

Hakak has been a professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at UCLA since 1974. He is the author of several scholarly books on Hebrew Literature. His first scholarly volume, published in 1977, focused on poets Avraham Ben-Yitzhak, Amir Gilboa, Natan Zakh and Shlomo Zamir.

Hakak is also a member of the Israel Bar Association and the State Bar of California.

Works

Poetry collections

Novels

Hakak, Lev. A House on a Hill (1994).

Short stories

Scholarly books

Hakak, Lev. Budding of Modern Hebrew Creativity in Babylon (Hebrew). The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, Research Institute of Babylonian Jewry, 2003. 371 pp. Hakak, Lev. The Collected Essays of Rabbi SHelomo Bekhor Hutsin. Hakkibutz Hameuchad, 2005 (Hebrew). 281 pp. Hakak, Lev. A Pious Man Faces Sinners: The Book of Moral Reroof by Ezra Habavli (Hebrew). Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2008. 329 pp. Introduction, References and Synopses by Lev Hakak. Sasson Mordekhai Mosheh, The Voice of Mirth (Hebrew). Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2015.231 pp.

Hakak, Lev. Beneath the Sugarcoating: The Voice of Mirth by Sasson Mordekhai Mosheh, with Introduction, References and Synopses. The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, Research Institute of Babylonian Jewry. 2012. 415 pp. Hakak, Lev. Song of the Whitewasher. Hadassa Word Press, 2016. 75 pp.* Hakak, Lev. The Gift of Life. Hadassa Word Press, 2018. 120 pages. Hakak, Lev. Reading Modern Hebrew Poetry and Prose. Hadassa Word Press, 2017. 321 pp.

Editorial Work

Hakak, Lev, Editor of Hadoar, the Hebrew Quarterly of Histadruth Ivrith of America, September 2002 - Summer 2004. Hakak, Lev, Editor of Hador: The Hebrew Annual of America, 2006 on. Hakak, Lev, Co-Editor with Zev Garber, Shmuel (Stephen) Katz and Zev Garber. The Maskil in Our Time: Studies in Honor of Moshe Pelli. Hakkibutz Hameuchad, 2017.