The Sapir Prize for Literature of Israel is a prestigious^[1][2] annual literary award presented for a work of fine literature. The prize is awarded by Mifal Hapayis (Israel's state lottery), and is a part of the organization's cultural initiatives. It carries the name of the late Pinhas Sapir, a former Finance Minister of Israel, and was first awarded in 2000.

Prize rules[link]

The group of judges for the prize is composed of prominent literary figures, whose names are kept confidential until the prize winner is named. Some of these judges are replaced from year to year.

The judges first select five books published during the previous year as final contestants for the prize. These books are selected from a list of books provided by the major publishing houses. After a number of weeks, a winner is chosen from these five books and is publicised during Israel's Hebrew Book Week.

The Sapir Prize, based on the British Man Booker Prize, is the most lucrative literary prize awarded in Israel: In 2005 the winner was awarded 150,000 NIS (roughly $35,000 USD), and each of the four remaining final contestants was awarded 25,000 NIS. In addition, the winner is granted translation of his work (from Hebrew) to the language of his choice. The prize award is the largest prize purse in literature in Israel.^[3]

In 2003, author Etgar Keret's book of short stories Anihu was disqualified from competing for the prize after it was discovered that the regulations required all competing books to run at least 60,000 words. This rule has since been abolished.

The five finalist authors participate in a round of literary get-togethers with readers throughout Israel with the backing of Israel's state lottery. In 2005, the state lottery ran a competition allowing readers to bet on the winner of the prize; the first 30 people to guess the winner correctly received the five finalist books.

In 2006, in response to many petitions, the prize's management decided to open up the competition to works published in the previous five years which had been translated into Hebrew from other languages. All competing authors must be Israeli citizens. The change was intended to allow Israeli authors writing in Russian, Arabic, English, and additional languages to compete. These authors can compete either in the normal prize track, or in a separate track specifically for translated works, from which only one work is selected.

The prize's awarding ceremony is broadcast every year on television during Israel's Hebrew Book Week.

Criticism[link]

The Sapir Prize has been criticized on the grounds that it is given to bestsellers. Some of the country's most important writers refuse to submit their candidacy for it, including Meir Shalev, Aharon Appelfeld, A.B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz.^[4]

Winners[link]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

• 2011: Haggai Linik, Prompter Needed^[5]
• 2010: Yoram Kaniuk^[6]
• 2009:
• 2008:
• 2007:
• 2006:
• 2005:
• 2004:
• 2003:
• 2002:
• 2001:David Grossman
• 2000:Haim Sabato

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Sapir Prize - About the Prize and Judges' Statement

Shimon Adaf (Hebrew: שמעון אדף‎, born 1972) is an Israeli poet and author born in Sderot.^[1]

Shimon Adaf's first book of poetry, Icarus' Monologue, won a prize from the Israeli Ministry of Education. In 1996–2000, Adaf studied at Tel Aviv University, simultaneously writing articles on literature, film and rock music for Israeli newspapers. In 2000–2005, he worked as a prose editor for Keter Publishing House.

Books[link]

Poetry[link]

• Icarus' Monologue, 1997 (poems)
• What Which I Thought Shadow Is the Real Body, 2002 (poems)

Prose[link]

• One Mile and Two Days Before Sunset, 2004
• A Mere Mortal (or: The Buried Heart), 2007
• Panim Tzruvei Hama (Sunburnt Faces), 2008

References[link]

External links[link]

• Shimon Adaf
• lyrikline.org page for Shimon Adaf (Hebrew and German).

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Haim Sabato is a Cairo-born Israeli rabbi and author.^[1] Born to a distinguished family of Aleppan descent in Cairo, Sabato fled persecution in Egypt and moved with his family to Jerusalem, Israel, as a young child during the 1950s. He co-founded the Hesder yeshiva in Ma'ale Adumim, Yeshivat Birkat Moshe, in 1977, and has published four popular novels, in addition to works of Torah-content. His style has earned comparisons with the late Israeli Nobel Laureate, Shmuel Yosef Agnon.

Background and career[link]

Rabbi Sabato was born in Cairo in 1952 to a Sephardic Jewish family. His grandfather had moved to Cairo from Aleppo, Syria, in the early twentieth century, a time when Aleppo's Jewish community was dwindling, due to the lessening of Aleppo's significance in regional trade, as a result of the Suez Canal. Rabbi Sabato's family, and the rest of the Jewish community, were forced to leave Egypt in 1957 by the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, following the Suez Crisis of 1956. The Sabato family migrated to Israel, but were sent to live in a transit camp near Kiryat Yovel, Jerusalem. Young Haim was educated as a young child in a Talmud Torah in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem, before studying at the prestigious Netiv Meir yeshiva high school, also in Bayit Vegan. Rabbi Sabato has mentioned Rabbi Aryeh Bina, rosh yeshiva of Netiv Meir, as one of his key influences.

After graduation, he joined the Hesder program at Yeshivat Hakotel, in Jerusalem's Old City, which combines yeshiva study with military service. His experiences during the Yom Kippur War, at the age of 21, eventually led him to write his essential work, Adjusting Sights. It was as a raw soldier, and having to contend with the huge Syrian tank offensive in the disastrous first days of the War, that he decided how he would spend his life if he were to survive: he would open a yeshiva of his own.

After surviving the war, both physically and spiritually, Sabato spent the next few years studying at the renowned Yeshivat Mercaz Harav, the spiritual home of religious Zionism. After receiving rabbinical ordination, Rabbi Sabato co-founded the yeshiva in the fledgling town of Ma'ale Adumim, in 1977. Despite having co-founded the yeshiva, both Rabbi Sabato and Rabbi Yaakov Sheilat, his co-founder, refused to assume the title of rosh yeshiva, due to their age. A renowned Talmudic scholar and educator, Rabbi Nachum Rabinowitz, was later appointed as rosh yeshiva.

Literary work[link]

Sabato's lyrical writing, with sentences studded with phrases drawn from and referring to passages in the Bible and Talmud has won him numerous fans and made him something of a symbol of the "pitfalls" of translating works of literature form one language to another.^[2]

Books[link]

Sabato's first book, Emet Mi Eretz Titzmach, (published in English as Aleppo Tales), is a collection of short stories relating to his family's ancestral home and community of Aleppo, northern Syria.

Sabato was awarded the prestigious Sapir Prize for Literature in its inaugural year, as well as the Yitzhak Sadeh Prize, for his second work, Teum Kavanot (titled Adjusting Sights in the English translation), a moving account of the experiences of a soldier in the Yom Kippur War. The book has also been made into a film.

His third publication, KeAfapey Shachar (published in English as Dawning of the Day: A Jerusalem Tale), a bestseller, tells the story of Ezra Siman Tov, and humble and religious Jerusalemite, coming to terms with a changing world.

Sabato's latest work, Bo'ee HaRuach (to be published in English as From the Four Winds in Spring 2010), was published in 2008, and describes his experiences as an "oleh chadash" (a new immigrant) in the Israeli "ma'abarot" - transit camps - of the 1950s.

Works translated into English[link]

• Adjusting Sights
• Aleppo Tales
• The Dawning of the Day: A Jerusalem Tale
• From the Four Winds

Sources[link]

• http://www.birkatmoshe.org.il/ftpeng/English_Site/ed/ed.html
• http://www.tobypress.com/books/sabato.htm
• http://www.tobypress.com/books/adjustingsights.htm
• http://www.tobypress.com/books/aleppo.htm
• http://www.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfm?mode=a&sectionid=61&contentid=17386&contentName=Best%20of%20Both%20Worlds%20%20%3Ci%3EThe%20Novels%20of%20Rab%20Haim%20Sabato%3C/i%3E
• http://www.ou.org/pdf/ja/5767/fall67/34-37.pdf

References[link]

Lea Aini (Hebrew: לאה איני‎) (born 1962 Tel Aviv), is an Israeli author and poet, who has written over twenty books.^[1]

Her 2009 novel The Rose of Lebanon, her eighth prose book, deals with the stories that a female soldier volunteer tells about her childhood as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor from Saloniki.

Awards[link]

• In 1988, Eini won the Wertheim Prize for Poetry and the Adler Prize for Poetry.
• In 1993, she was awarded the Prime Minister's award for young authors, which she received again in 2003.^[1]
• In 1994, she received the Tel Aviv Foundation Award.
• In 2006, she received the Bernstein Prize (original Hebrew language play category).^[2]
• In 2010, she was awarded the Bialik Prize for literature, (jointly with Shlomit Cohen-Assif and Mordechai Goldman).

[edit] Books Published in Hebrew^[2]

• Portrait (poetry), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1988 Diokan
• The Empress of Imagined Fertility (poetry), Hakibbutz Hameuchad/Siman Kriah, 1991 Keisarit Ha-Pirion Ha-Medumeh
• The Sea Horse Race (stories & novella), Hakibbutz Hameuchad/Siman Kriah, 1991 Giborei Kaitz
• Sand Tide (novel), Hakibbutz Hameuchad/Siman Kriah, 1992 Geut Ha-Hol
• Call Me from Downstairs (youth), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1994 Tikrah Li Mi-Lemata
• Mr. Rabbit's Job Hunt (children), Am Oved, 1994 Mar Arnav Mehapes Avoda
• Hi, Yuli (youth), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1995 Hei, Yuli
• Someone Must Be Here (novel), Hakibbutz Hameuchad/Siman Kriah, 1995 Mishehi Tzricha Lihiot Kan
• Half-Pint and Wandercloud: Octopina (children), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1996 Hetzi Ve-Ananas: Tamnunina
• Oleanders or Poisoned Love Stories, (stories) Zmora Bitan, 1997 Hardufim, O Sipurim Mur`alim Al Ahava
• Ashtoret (novel), Zmora Bitan, 1999 [Ashtoret]
• One Song Me, One Song Mummy (children), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2000 Shir Ani, Shir Ima
• Sdommel (novella & two stories), Hakibbutz Hameuchad/Siman Kriah, 2001 Sdommel
• Parsley Ponytail (children), Kinneret, 2002 Kuku Petrozilia
• Giant, Queen, and the Master of Games (novel), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2004 Anak, Malka Veaman Hamischakim
• Rose of Lebanon (novel), Kinneret, Zmora- Bitan, 2009 Vered HA-Levanon

See also[link]

• List of Bialik Prize recipients

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Not only spiritual leaders, but also the moon can teach Bible." Poetry International Centre, May 2, 2005

This article about an Israeli writer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Gail Haraven is a writer from Israel. She is the author of six novels and three short story collections, as well as plays and nonfiction. In 2002, she was awarded the prestigious Sapir Prize for Literature for The Confessions of Noa Weber, and currently lives in Jerusalem. The Confessions of Noa Weber is her first book translated into English,^[1] it won the 2009 Best Translated Book Award for the Hebrew to English translation by Dalya Bilu.

Bibliography[link]

• The Confessions of Noa Weber, (2009) Melville House Publishing

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Slows, a short story
• [1]