Ephraim Kishon (help· info) (Hebrew:אפרים קישון) (August 23, 1924 – January 29, 2005) was an Israeli writer, satirist, dramatist, screenwriter, and film director. Image File history File links He-Efraim_Kishon. ... “Hebrew” redirects here. ... August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar). ... January 29 is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian 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. ... 1867 edition of the satirical magazine Punch, a British satirical magazine, ground-breaking on popular literature satire. ... A dramatist is an author of dramatic compositions, usually plays. ... Screenwriters, scenarists or script writers, are authors who write the screenplays from which movies and television programs are made. ... The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ...

Early biography

Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, as Ferenc Hoffmann, he studied sculpture and painting, and then began publishing humorous essays and writing for the stage. During World War II the Nazis imprisoned him in several concentration camps. At one camp his chess talent helped him survive as the camp commandant was looking for an opponent. In another camp the Germans lined up the inmates shooting every tenth person, passing him by. He later wrote in his book The Scapegoat, "They made a mistake—they left one satirist alive." He managed to escape while being transported to the Sobibor death camp in Poland, and hid the remainder of the war disguised as "Stanko Andras", a Slovakian laborer. After 1945 he changed his surname from Hoffmann to Kishont to disguise his jewish heritage and returned to Hungary to study art and publish humorous plays. He emigrated to Israel in 1949 to escape the Communist regime, and an immigration officer gave him the name Ephraim Kishon. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A sculpture is a three-dimensional object, which for the purposes of this article is man-made and selected for special recognition as art. ... For building painting, see painter and decorator. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... National Socialism redirects here. ... Chess is a recreational and competitive game for two players. ... Sobibór was a Nazi extermination camp that was part of Operation Reinhard. ... A memorial statue in Hanko, Finland, commemorating the thousands of emigrants who left the country to start a new life in the United States Emigration is the act of nolan muir the phenomenon of leaving ones native country to settle abroad. ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. ...

Acquiring a mastery of Hebrew with remarkable speed, he started a regular satirical column in the easy-Hebrew daily, Omer, after only two years in the country. From 1952, he wrote the column "Had Gadya" in the daily Ma'ariv. Devoted largely to political and social satire but including essays of pure humour, it became one of the most popular columns in the country. His extraordinary inventiveness, both in the use of language and the creation of character, was applied also to the writing of innumerable sketches for theatrical revues. “Hebrew” redirects here. ... Maariv House (the newspaper headquarters) in Carlebach street, Tel Aviv Maariv (Hebrew: , transl. ... Look up humour in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Theatre

Some of his plays are:

• His reputation precedes him (1953)
• Ha-Ketubbah (1953)
• Take the plug out (1968)
• Oh, oh, Juliet (1972)
• Salah Shabati the musical. (1988)

His sketches and plays have been performed, in translation, on the stages and television networks of several countries.

Films

Kishon wrote, directed and produced numerous feature films, including:

• Sallah Shabati (1964) which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, won Golden Globes for Best Actor (Chaim Topol) and Best Foreign Film, and the Best Script and Best Actor awards at the San Francisco Film Festival
• Blaumilch Canal, also known as The Big Dig (1969)
• Ha-Shoter Azoulay (literally, Officer Azoulay, translated as The Policeman for international release), (1971) which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and the Best Foreign Film Prize at the Barcelona Film Festival, won Best Director at the Monte Carlo Festival and the judges' prize at Atlanta. In Israel the movie is considered a classic.

which all enjoyed international distribution. Sallah Shabbati (Heb. ... The Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Foreign Language Film is a yearly US award for the best film in a language other than English, released in the period October - September in the country of origin. ... Picture from the film Fiddler on the Roof. Chaim Topol (Hebrew: חיים טופול) (born September 9, 1935), often billed simply as Topol, is one of the most famous Israeli theatrical and film performers. ... Bomba Tzur (Blaumilch) in a German movie poster for Blaumilch Canal Blaumilch Canal (international release title: The Big Dig): a 1969 Israeli comedy directed by Ephraim Kishon, which depicts the madness of bureaucracy through a municipality’s reaction to the actions of a lunatic. ... The Angry Policeman is a constable in the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends TV Series. ... The Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Foreign Language Film is a yearly US award for the best film in a language other than English, released in the period October - September in the country of origin. ...

• Ervinka (1967).
• The Fox in the Chicken Coop (1978)

Chaim Topol as Ervinka: Israeli DVD cover Ervinka is a 1967 Israeli film written and directed by Ephraim Kishon. ... Based on Ephraim Kishon’s satirical book by the same name, The Fox in the Chicken Coop (Hebrew: Ha Shual BLool Hatarnagalot) is a 1978 Israeli film directed by Kishon. ...

Writing

Collections of his humorous writings have appeared in Hebrew and in translation, the English translations including Look Back Mrs. Lot (1960), Noah's Ark, Tourist Class (1962), The Seasick Whale (1965), and two books on the Six-Day War and its aftermath, So Sorry We Won (1967), and Woe to the Victors (1969). Two collections of his plays have also appeared in Hebrew, Shemo Holekh Lefanav (1953) and Ma´arkhonim (1959). This article is becoming very long. ...

His works have been translated into 37 languages and by far the most were sold in Germany. Kishon rejected the idea of universal guilt for the Holocaust and had many friends in Germany. Kishon said “It gives me great satisfaction to see the grandchildren of my executioners queuing up to buy my books.” Friedrich Torberg was his congenial translator to German, until he died in 1979; thereafter Kishon himself wrote in German. All in all he has written over 50 books. ... Friedrich Torberg (September 16, 1908 - November 10, 1979) is the pen-name of Friedrich Kantor-Berg, an Austrian writer. ...

Family

His first marriage (1946) to Eva (Chawa) Klamer ended in divorce. In 1959 he married his second wife Sara (née Lipovitz), who died in 2002. In 2003 he married Lisa Witasek. He had three children: Raphael (b. 1957), Amir (b. 1964), and Renana (b. 1968). For the record label, see Divorce Records. ...

Kishon was a life-long chess enthusiast, and early on he took interest in chess-playing computers. In 1990, German chess computer manufacturer Hegener & Glaser together with Fidelity produced the Kishon Chesster, a chess computer distinguished by the spoken comments it would make during a game. Kishon wrote the comments to be humorous, but also carefully chosen to be relevant to chess and the position in the game. 1990s Pressure-sensory Chess Computer with LCD screen The idea of creating a chess-playing machine dates back to the eighteenth century. ...

In 1981 Kishon established a second home in the rural Swiss canton of Appenzell. He had come to feel somewhat estranged and unappreciated in Israel, believing that some native-born Israelis were against him because he was a Hungarian immigrant and that the literary establishment looked down on his best-selling "middle-brow" works. Kishon became increasingly conservative and continued to strongly support Zionism, and also publicly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In March 2002 Kishon received the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the nation's highest civilian award. He commented "I've won the Israel Prize, even though I'm pro-Israel. It's almost like a state pardon. They usually give it to one of those liberals who love the Palestinians and hate the settlers." Appenzell (or Appenzellerland) is a region in the northeast of Switzerland, entirely surrounded by the Canton of St. ... Combatants Coalition Forces: United States United Kingdom South Korea Australia Poland Romania others. ... The Israel Prize is the most prestigious award handed out by the State of Israel. ...

Kishon died in Switzerland at age 80, apparently of a heart attack. His body was returned to Israel and buried in the artists' cemetery in Tel Aviv. Tel-Aviv was founded on empty dunes north of the existing city of Jaffa. ...

Wikinews has news related to:

Ephraim Kishon dies at 80

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External links

• Kishon Fan site—includes biography, information and several of Kishon's stories.
• TimesOnline obituary
• Ephraim Kishon (Chessbase.com news)—biography and involvement with chess computers