Amos Oz, November 7 2004

Amos Oz (born May 4, 1939), birth name Amos Klausner, is an Israeli writer, novelist, and journalist. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva. Since 1967, he has been a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Download high resolution version (856x1152, 188 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (856x1152, 188 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... May 4 is the 124th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (125th in leap years). ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe; title page of 1719 newspaper edition A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended fictional narrative in prose. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A professor giving a lecture The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ... Old book bindings at the Merton College library. ... The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב) was founded in 1969, in Beer Sheva, Israel. ... Beer Sheva is a city in Israel and the largest city of the Negev desert, often known as the Capital of the Negev. In 2004, Beer Sheva had a population of 184,500 making it the fifth largest city in Israel. ... The wo-state solution is the name for a class of proposed resolutions of the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict now explicitly backed by the US government. ... Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ...

Life

He was born in Jerusalem, where he grew up at No. 18 Amos Street in the Kerem Avraham neighborhood. Roughly half of his fiction is set within a mile of where he grew up. His parents, Yehuda Arieh Klausner and Fania Musman, were Zionist immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father studied history and literature in Vilnius, Lithuania. In Jerusalem his father was a librarian and writer. His maternal grandfather had owned a mill in Rovno, western Ukraine, but moved with his family to Haifa in 1934. Jerusalem (Hebrew: Yerushalayim; Arabic: al-Quds; Greek Ιεροσόλυμα; Latin Aelia Capitolina) is an ancient Middle Eastern city on the watershed between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea at an elevation of 650-840 meters. ... Kerem Avraham is a suburb of Jerusalem, founded in 1920. ... Poster promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s: Toward a New Life (in Romanian),The Promised Land (in Hungarian), in small (down) text is written First Palestinian sound movie 1844 Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews by Mordecai Noah, page one. ... Current division of Europe into five (or more) regions: one definition of Eastern Europe is marked in orange Eastern Europe as a region has several alternative definitions, whereby it can denote: the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Central Europe and Russia. ... Location Ethnographic region DzÅ«kija County Vilnius County Municipality Vilnius city municipality Elderate Number of elderates 20 Coordinates General information Capital of Lithuania Vilnius County Vilnius city municipality Vilnius district municipality Population (rank) 540,318 in 2005 (1st) First mentioned 1323 Granted city rights 1387 Vilnius ( (help· info), Belarusian: , Polish... Rivne (Ukrainian Рівне , Polish Równe) - city in Ukraine, capital of Rivnenska oblast, with 249,900 inhabitants (2004). ... Nickname: Red Haifa Official website: www. ...

Politically his family background was right-wing Revisionist Zionists. His uncle Joseph Klausner was the Herut party candidate for the presidency against Chaim Weizmann and was chair of the Hebrew literary society at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In politics, right-wing, the political right, or simply The Right, are terms that refer to the segment of the political spectrum often associated with any of several strains of conservatism, the religious right, and areas of classical liberalism, or simply the opposite of left-wing politics. ... Revisionist Zionism is a right wing tendency within the Zionist movement. ... Joseph Klausner (1874-1958) was a brilliant Jewish scholar born in Lithuania who emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine, and died in Israel. ... Herut (Hebrew: חרות Freedom) was the political party of the Revisionist Zionist movement in Israel. ... Chaim Weizmann and Harry S. Truman, May 25, 1948 Chaim Azriel Weizmann (Hebrew: חיים ויצמן) (also: Chaijim W., Haim W.) (November 27, 1874 – November 9, 1952) chemist, statesman, President of the World Zionist Organization, first President of Israel (elected May 16, 1948, served 1949 - 1952) and founder of a research institute in... האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is one of Israels oldest, largest and most important institutes of higher learning and research. ...

He and his family were distant from religion, disdaining its irrationality. Yet he attended the community religious school Tachkemoni. The alternative was the socialistic school affiliated with the labor movement, to which his family was decidedly opposed in their political values. The noted poet Zelda was one of his teachers. His secondary schooling took place at the Hebrew high school Rehavia. Zelda Schneersohn Mishkovsky (1914-1992), commonly known simply as Zelda, is a twentieth-century Israeli poet. ...

His mother committed suicide when he was twelve, causing him repercussions that he would explore in his memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness. He became a Labor Zionist and joined Kibbutz Hulda at the age of fifteen. There he was adopted by the Huldai family (whose firstborn son Ron now serves as mayor of Tel Aviv) and lived a full kibbutz life. At this time he changed his surname to "Oz", Hebrew for "strength". "Tel Aviv was not radical enough," he later said, "only the kibbutz was radical enough." However, by his own account he was "a disaster as a laborer... the joke of the kibbutz." [Remnick, 2004, p.91] He remained living and working on the kibbutz until he and his wife Nily moved to Arad in 1986 on account of his son Daniel's asthma; however, as his writing career flowered he was allowed to gradually decrease his time devoted to normal kibbutz work: the royalties from his writing produced sufficient income for the kibbutz to justify this. In his own words, he "became a branch of the farm". [Remnick, 2004, p.92] Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending ones own life. ... Labor Zionism (or Labour Zionism) is the traditional left-wing of the Zionist ideology. ... Kibbutz Dan, near Qiryat Shemona, in the Upper Galilee, 1990s A kibbutz (Hebrew: קיבוץ; plural: kibbutzim: קיבוצים, gathering or together) is an Israeli collective community. ... Hebrew (עִבְרִית ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Jewish communities around the world. ... Tel-Aviv was founded on empty dunes north of the existing city of Jaffa. ... Arad may refer to: the following places in the Transylvania Arad, Romania, the main city of Arad County. ...

Like most Jewish Israelis, he served in the Israeli Defense Forces. In the late 1950s he served in the kibbutz-oriented Nahal unit and was involved in border skirmishes with Syria; during the Six-Day War (1967) he was with a tank unit in Sinai; during the Yom Kippur War (1973) he served in the Golan Heights. [Remnick, 2004, p.92] Jews (Hebrew: יהודים, Yehudim) are followers of Judaism or, more generally, members of the Jewish people (also known as the Jewish nation, or the Children of Israel), an ethno-religious group descended from the ancient Israelites and converts who joined their religion. ... The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) (Hebrew: צבא ההגנה לישראל Tsva Ha-Haganah Le-Yisrael ([Army] Force [for] the Defense of Israel), often abbreviated צהל Tsahal, alternative English spelling Tzahal, is the name of Israels armed forces (army, air force and navy). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Combatants Israel Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq Commanders Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Dayan, Uzi Narkiss, Israel Tal, Ariel Sharon Abdel Hakim Amer, Abdul Munim Riad, Zaid ibn Shaker, Hafez al-Assad Strength 50,000 troops (264,000 including mobilized reservists); 197 combat aircraft Egypt 150,000 troops; Syria 75,000; Jordan 55... Sinai Peninsula, Gulf of Suez (west), Gulf of Aqaba (east) from Space Shuttle STS-40 For other uses of the word Sinai, please see: Sinai (disambiguation). ... Combatants Israel Egypt, Syria, (Jordan, Iraq) Commanders Moshe Dayan, David Elazar, Ariel Sharon, Shmuel Gonen, Benjamin Peled Saad El Shazly, Ahmad Ismail Ali, Hosni Mubarak, Mohammed Aly Fahmy, Anwar Sadat, Abdel Ghani el-Gammasy, Abdul Munim Wassel, Abd-Al-Minaam Khaleel, Abu Zikry Mustafa Tlas[2], [3] Strength 415,000... Sites on the Golan in blue are Israeli settlement communities. ...

After Nahal, Oz studied philosophy and Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University. Except for some short articles in the kibbutz newsletter and the newspaper Davar, he didn't publish anything until the age of 22, when he began to publish books. His first collection of stories Where the Jackal Howls appeared in 1965. His first novel Elsewhere, Perhaps was published in 1966. He began to write incessantly, publishing an average of one book per year on the Labor Party press, Am Oved.

Oz left Am Oved despite his political affiliation. He went to Keter because he received an exclusive contract that granted him a fixed monthly salary regardless of frequency of publication.

His oldest daughter, Fania, teaches history at Haifa University. The University of Haifa (אוניברסיטת חיפה) is a university in Haifa, Israel. ...

Oz was awarded his country’s most prestigious prize: the Israel Prize for Literature in 1998, the fiftieth anniversary year of Israel’s independence. In 2005, he was awarded the Goethe Prize from the city of Frankfurt, Germany, a prestigious prize which was awarded in the past to the likes of Sigmund Freud and Thomas Mann for his life's work. The Israel Prize is the most prestigious award handed out by the State of Israel. ... Goethe Prize recipients: 1927 - Stefan Georg, Germany 1928 - Albert Schweitzer, Germany 1929 - Leopold Ziegler, Germany 1930 - Sigmund Freud, Germany 1931 - Ricarda Huch, Germany 1932 - Gerhart Hauptmann, Germany 1933 - Hermann Sehr, Germany 1934 - Hans Pfitzner, Germany 1935 - Hermann Stegemann, Germany 1936 - Georg Kolbe , Germany 1937 - Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer, Germany 1938 - Hans... Skyline of Frankfurt at night is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany. ... Sigmund Freud, around 1921 Sigmund Freud (IPA: []) (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann (June 6, 1875 – August 12, 1955) was a German novelist, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate, lauded principally for a series of highly symbolic and often ironic epic novels and mid-length stories, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist...

He has written 18 books in Hebrew, and about 450 articles and essays. His works have been translated into some 30 languages.

Works

Besides his fiction, Oz regularly publishes essays on the subjects of politics, literature, and peace. He has written extensively for the Israeli Labor newspaper Davar and (since the demise of Davar in the 1990s) for Yedioth Ahronoth. In English, his non-fiction has appeared in various places, including the New York Review of Books. Davar (Hebrew: דבר, meaning thing or word) was a Hebrew language daily newspaper published in Israel from 1925 until 1994. ... Yedioth Ahronoth (Hebrew: ידיעות אחרונות, meaning latest news) is a major daily Israeli newspaper, written in Hebrew. ... The New York Review of Books (or NYRB) is a biweekly magazine on literature, culture, and current affairs published in New York which takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity. ...

Amos Oz is one of the writers whose work literary researchers study from a fundamental approach. At Ben-Gurion University in the Negev a special collection was established dealing with him and his works. Amos Oz has been considered in recent years one of the serious candidates to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. He received the Israel Prize in the category of literature in 1998.

In his works Amos Oz tends to present protagonists in a realistic light with a light ironic touch. His treatment of the subject of the kibbutz in his writings is accompanied by a somewhat critical tone.

In his 2004 essay "How to Cure a Fanatic" (later the title essay of a 2006 collection), Oz argues that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a war of religion or cultures or traditions, but rather a real estate dispute--one that will be resolved not by greater understanding, but by painful compromise.

His books other than novels include:

• In the Land of Israel (essays on political issues)
• Israel, Palestine and Peace: Essays
• Under This Blazing Light
• A Tale of Love and Darkness (2003)
• How to Cure a Fanatic (2006)

He has written the following novels.

• Where the Jackals Howl (1965)
• Elsewhere, Perhaps (1966)
• My Michael (1968)
• Unto Death (1971)
• Touch the Water, Touch the Wind (1973)
• The Hill of Evil Counsel (1976)
• Soumchi (1978)
• A Perfect Peace (1982)
• Black Box (1987)
• To Know a Woman (1989)
• Fima (1991)
• Don't Call It Night (1994)
• A Panther in the Basement (1995)
• The Same Sea (1999)
• A Tale of Love and Darkness (2003)

My Michael is a novel written in Hebrew by the Israeli author Amos Oz, published in 1968, and translated into about thirty languages. ... Black Box is a book by Israeli writer Amos Oz. ...

Politics

Amos Oz is among the most influential and well regarded intellectuals in Israel. This regard is also evident in the societal realm where he regularly speaks out, although not as frequently as he did in the mid-90s, when he received news coverage for every utterance.

Oz's positions are notably dovish in the political sphere and social-democratic in the socio-economic sphere. Oz was one of the first Israelis to advocate a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the Six-Day War. He did so in a 1967 article "Land of our Forefathers" in the Labor newspaper Davar. "Even unavoidable occupation is a corrupting occupation," he wrote. [Remnick, 2004, p.92] In 1978, he was one of the founders of Peace Now. Unlike some others in the Israeli peace movement, he does not oppose the construction of an Israeli West Bank barrier, but believes that it should be roughly along the Green Line, the pre-1967 border. [Remnick, 2004, p.93] The wo-state solution is the name for a class of proposed resolutions of the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict now explicitly backed by the US government. ... Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ... Davar (Hebrew: דבר, meaning thing or word) was a Hebrew language daily newspaper published in Israel from 1925 until 1994. ... Belligerent military occupation, occurs when one nations military garrisons occupy all or part of a foreign nation during an invasion (during or after a war). ... Peace Now (Hebrew: שלום עכשיו - Shalom Achshav) is an extra-parliamental political movement in Israel, with the agenda of swaying popular opinion and convincing the Israeli government of the need and possibility for achieving a just peace and an historic conciliation with the Palestinian people and neighboring Arab countries; this in exchange... The barrier route as of May 2005. ... Green Line may refer to: Provisional demarcation lines: Green Line (Cyprus), between the Cypriot government and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Green Line (Israel), between Israel and its Arab neighbors Green Line (Lebanon), between Christian and Muslim militias Public transit lines: The Green Line (Baltimore), a proposed transit line...

He opposed settlement activity from the very first and was among the first to praise the Oslo Accords and talks with the PLO. In his speeches and essays he frequently attacks the non-Zionist left, to the point of self-abnegation as he says, and always emphasizes his Zionist identity. He is identified by many right-wing observers as the most eloquent spokesperson of the Zionist left. The Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles (DOP), were finalized in Oslo, Norway on August 20, 1993, and subsequently officially signed at a public ceremony in Washington D.C. on September 13, 1993, with Mahmoud Abbas signing for the... Anti-Zionism is a term used to describe several different political and religious points of view. ... Poster promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s: Toward a New Life (in Romanian),The Promised Land (in Hungarian), in small (down) text is written First Palestinian sound movie 1844 Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews by Mordecai Noah, page one. ... Labor Zionism (or Labour Zionism) is the traditional left-wing of the Zionist ideology. ...

A couple of quotes that express his positions well:

• "Two Palestinian-Israeli wars have erupted in this region. One is the Palestinian nation's war for its freedom from occupation and for its right to independent statehood. Any decent person ought to support this cause. The second war is waged by fanatical Islam, from Iran to Gaza and from Lebanon to Ramallah, to destroy Israel and drive the Jews out of their land. Any decent person ought to abhor this cause." (April 7, 2002)

• (Unofficial translation from Hebrew) Our biggest problem is the disappearance of social solidarity. A gross egotism is developing here, that isn't even ashamed of itself. Twenty years ago a girl from Bet Shean said on television "I'm hungry", and the doorposts shook (Isaiah 6:4). Yes, partly it was just lip service, but at least there was lip service. Today, even if she died of hunger on a live broadcast, nothing would happen, apart from high ratings and copywriters using the incident for their purposes. Anyone who once naively thought that the engine of the entrepreneurs and the rich would pull behind it a long train in which the rear cars would also go forward, was mistaken. That didn't happen. The engines are moving, and the rear cars are left behind on the rusting tracks. (September 6, 2002)

For many years Oz was identified with the Israeli Labor Party and was close to its leader Shimon Peres. When Shimon Peres was retiring from the leadership of the Israeli Labour Party, he is said to have named Oz as one of three possible successors, along with Ehud Barak (later prime minister) and Shlomo Ben-Ami (later Barak's foreign minister). [Remnick, 2004, p.92] Labour (העבודה HaAvoda) is an Israeli political party. ... (Hebrew שִׁמְעוֹן פֶּרֶס without Niqqud: שמעון פרס) (born Shimon Perske on August 16, 1923 in Poland, and immigrated with his family to Israel in 1934), is an Israeli politician, who was a supporter of the Labor Party until December 2005, but still holding a status of member. ... Labour (העבודה HaAvoda) is an Israeli political party. ... Ehud Barak (Hebrew: אֵהוּד בָּרָק) (born February 12, 1942, in Mishmar HaSharon kibbutz, then British Mandate of Palestine) is an Israeli politician and was the 10th Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Shlomo Ben-Ami (born July 17, 1943) is an Israeli diplomat, politician and author. ...

In the 90s Oz withdrew his support from Labor and went left to Meretz, where he had good, close connections with the leader, Shulamit Aloni. In recent years he described the Labor Party as a party that "in my view almost doesn't exist any more". In the elections to the sixteenth Knesset that took place in 2003, Oz appeared in the Meretz television campaign, calling upon the public to vote for Meretz. Meretz (מרצ, Hebrew: vitality, energy) was an Israeli leftist secular political party. ... Shulamit Aloni (born November 29, 1928) is a human rights activist, lawyer and former Israeli politician. ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Amos Oz

• A summary of his book "A Tale Of Love & Darkness"
• Amos Oz Archive at Ben-Gurion University
• Biography at Jewish Virtual Library
• Biography and Bibliography at the Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature
• 1983 and 1985 audio interviews of Amos Oz by Don Swaim of CBS Radio - RealAudio

Image File history File links Wikiquote-logo-en. ... Wikiquote logo Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ...

References

• עמוס עוז (Amos Oz) from the Hebrew-language Wikipedia. Retrieved February 1, 2005.
• Bashan, Tal. "Oz For Change" [Oz Letmurah], Haaretz. September 6, 2002.
• Oz, Amos. "An end to Israeli occupation will mean a just war", The Observer. April 7, 2002.
• Remnick, David, "The Spirit Level". The New Yorker, November 8, 2004, 82-95.