Yoram Kaniuk

Yoram Kaniuk
Born	(1930-05-02)May 2, 1930 Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine
Died	June 8, 2013(2013-06-08) (aged 83) Tel Aviv, Israel
Occupation(s)	Writer, painter, journalist, theatre critic
Years active	1963-2013
Notable work	The Last Jew
Spouse	Miranda Baker ​ (m. 1958)​
Children	2

Yoram Kaniuk (Hebrew: יורם קניוק; May 2, 1930 – June 8, 2013) was an Israeli writer, painter, journalist, and theatre critic.

Biography

Yoram Kaniuk was born in Tel Aviv. His father, Moshe Kaniuk, was the first curator of Tel Aviv Museum of Art and was born in Ternopil, Galicia, which is now in Ukraine but was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His grandfather was a Hebrew teacher who wrote his own textbooks. Kaniuk's mother, born in Odessa, was also a teacher. Her family immigrated to Palestine in 1909, the year Tel Aviv was founded, and settled in Neve Tzedek, which has become part of the established Tel Aviv. Later they moved to Kiryat Meir, and later to Ben Yehuda Street.

In 1947, at the age of 17, Kaniuk joined the Palmach. In 1948, during the War of Independence, he took part in several battles and was shot in the legs by an Englishman in a keffiyeh, but then the Englishman rescued him and he was treated at the British Mount Sinai Hospital.

In 1958 while living in the USA, Kaniuk married Miranda Baker, a Christian woman, and returned to Israel with her. They had two daughters, Aya and Naomi.

Kaniuk was an anti-war activist who advocated for a peaceful solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

He befriended Charlie Parker in New York City in the fifties and made out with Billie Holiday, who wrote him a song. He brought Holocaust survivors to Israel on the SS Pan York, and fought his way into besieged Jerusalem. He was wounded in battle. He buried friends whose names he didn’t know. He had been spared death by the good graces of a British sniper, and stripped of his sabra arrogance by a story a young man told him about pulling diamonds from the rectums of his dead parents in order to stay alive in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Mitch Ginsburg

Kaniuk died of cancer on June 8, 2013, at the age of 83. After his death, his body was donated to science.

Civil status

In May 2011, Kaniuk petitioned the Israeli Interior Ministry to change his religion status from "Jewish" to "no religion". The petition came after the birth of his grandson, Omri, who was registered as having "no religion" due to not being Jewish under the Halakhic definition used by Israeli civil law. He cited the fact that his child and infant grandson, because they are descended from a mixed Jewish/Christian marriage, are legally unclassified in terms of religion, and his desire not to belong to a "Jewish Iran" or "what is today called the religion of Israel." On September 27, 2011, The Hon. Judge Gideon Ginat of the Tel Aviv District Court approved his petition and ordered the change of his record of religion to "no religion" in his record in the Population Administration Register. The Rabbinate retained a veto over his status.

Hundreds of other Israelis expressed an intention to do the same; a new Hebrew verb, lehitkaniuk ("to Kaniuk oneself", "to Kaniukize", Hebrew: להתקניוק, a pun with "lehitraot", Hebrew: לְהִתְרָאוֹת, a parting phrase) was coined to refer to this process.

Literary career

Kaniuk has published 17 novels, a memoir, seven collections of short stories, two books of essays and five books for children and youth. His books have been published in 25 languages and he has won numerous literary prizes.

An international conference dedicated to the works of Kaniuk was held at Cambridge University in March 2006.

Literary themes and style

'Eagles' is a war story that attacks the subject of death in Israeli culture from a unique angle. His work has been described as "existential writing that deviates from the Israeli consensus" and difficult to categorize.

He is known for the dark, somewhat bizarre humor in his writing. The late writers Anthony Burgess and Kurt Vonnegut have influenced his unsettling style of political satire. He was widely rejected by the Israeli mainstream until the 21st century, when many young readers found his unique take on the sensitive Israeli social climate refreshing.

Awards and honours

Kaniuk has won numerous literary prizes, including the following:

• In 1980, the Ze`ev Prize for Children's Literature for The House Where the Cockroaches Live to a Ripe Old Age
• In 1997, Prix des Droits de l'homme de la République française.
• In 1998, President's Award for Literature.
• In 1999, the Bialik Prize for literature (co-recipient with Aharon Almog and Nurit Zarchi).
• In 2000, the Prix Mediterranee Etranger for Commander of the Exodus.
• In 2005, the Book Publishers Association's Gold Book Prize.
• In 2006, the Neuman Prize.
• 2008: Kugel Prize for lifetime achievement
• In 2011, the Sapir Prize for Literature for 1948.
• 2011: officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France for the book 1948'

Works

• The Acrophile (1960)
• Himmo, King of Jerusalem (1968)

  Adapted into the film with the same name

• Adam Resurrected (he:אדם בן כלב, Adam, Son of a Dog) (novel, 1969, translated in 1971)

  The film Adam Resurrected is based on the novel

• Rockinghorse (1977) ISBN 0-06-012245-5
• The Story of Aunt Shlomzion the Great (1978) ISBN 0-06-012259-5
• Confessions of a Good Arab (1984) ISBN 0-8076-1210-3; the Hebrew title translates as "A Good Arab", written under the pen name Yossef Sherara (שרארה יוסף)
• His Daughter (1987) ISBN 0-8076-1215-4
• Wasserman (וסרמן) (1988), a children's book about a stray dog who finds a good home
• Tiger Hill (טייגרהיל) (1995)

  A mystery novel; the heroes " try to decipher the mysterious connection between the Tiger Hill - an immigration ship that ran aground in 1939 by the coast of Tel Aviv, the explosion, a dead cat and an unrequited lover, a former labor battalion man, and the murder in the cafe."

  Translated in French as Comme chiens et chats (1996) and in Italian as Tigerhill

• Commander of the Exodus (1999) ISBN 0-8021-1664-7, translated in English in 2000 by Seymour Simckes

  The book chronicles the life of the captain of SS Exodus Yossi Harel, who brouht four loads of Holocaust survivors to Palestine, based in the interviews with Harel

• 1979: The House Where Cockroaches Live to a Ripe Old Age (English translation by Miranda Kaniuk: 2001) ISBN 81-7655-041-8

  The story is about a little girl Naomi who loves animals and her house has a cat, kittens dogs, horse, turtle, porcupine, pigeon, aquarium fish, and cockroaches. Naomi even forbids her mother to kill mosquitos with a spray.

  A 60-minute documentary about Yoram Kaniuk was produced under this title by Ma'agalot Productions, Tel Aviv in 1996.

• Life on Sandpaper (2003) ISBN 9781564786135
• The Last Jew (novel, 1982; eng tr 2006) ISBN 0-8021-1811-9

  A controversial 1981 film The Vulture is based on chapters from the novel

• Eagles and Scavengers (2006), a two-part book
  • Eagles (short story), about his experience of being injured and abandoned after the lost Battle of Nebi Semwil (1948). His experiences in the battle were later detailed in the novel 1948
  • Scavengers (Hebrew: נבלות) (novella)

    Eagles (2012 film) is based on Scavengers: two elderly ex-soldiers, Efraim and Moshka become vigilantes in Tel-Aviv (it was a TV miniseries in Israel)

• 2007: Between Life and Death (novel); English translation by Barbara Harshav: 2016

  An autobiographical novel, reflections on his life and work, based on the experience of being in coma and subsequent half-trance

• 2010: 1948 (Hebrew: תש"ח, Tasha"h) (fictionalized autobiographical novel)

External links

• Short biography with extensive list of works
• An English excerpt from his autobiographical novel "My Way"