Benjamin Harshav

Benjamin Harshav
Born	26 June 1928 Vilnius
Died	23 April 2015 (aged 86) New Haven
Parents	Abraham Hrushovski Dvora Freidkes-Hrushovski
Awards	Koret Jewish Book Award EMET Prize
Academic work
Institutions	Tel Aviv University University of Jerusalem Yale University University of California, Berkeley

Benjamin Harshav (born Hrushovski, Hebrew: בנימין הרשב (הרושובסקי)); 26 June 1928 – 23 April 2015 was a literary theorist specialising in comparative literature, Yiddish and Hebrew poet (under pen names including H. Benjamin (Hebrew: ה. בנימיו) and Gabi Daniel (Hebrew: גבי דניאל)), and Israeli translator and editor. He served as a professor of literature at the University of Tel Aviv and as a professor of comparative literature, Hebrew language and literature, and Slavic language and literature at Yale University. He was the founding editor of Duke University Press publication Poetics Today. He received the EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture in 2005 and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Early Life

Benjamin Harshav was born in 1928, in the city of Vilnius in Poland (now the capital of Lithuania). His parents were both educators: Dr Abraham Hrushovski (Hebrew surname Agasi, Hebrew: אגסי), his father, was a history teacher who taught in various gymnasiums In Vilnius and later in Haifa (died in 1973); Dvora Freidkes-Hrushovski (1896-1985), his mother, was a Mathematics teacher and school headmistress in Vilnius. He had a younger sister, Eta Hrushovski (Hebrew: אטה הרושובסקי), born 1934, who died in 1968 during a trip in Turkey.

Harshav studied in a secular Yiddish school and Yiddish gymnasium. In 1941, as Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, his family fled Eastward to the Ural Mountains, where they lived until 1946 in the small village Verkhnyaya Vyazovka. He finished his senior exams in a Russian school in 1945, and studied mathematics and physics at Orenburg, where he won a prize for first-year students. From 1946-48 he lived in Communist Poland and Germany. From 1947-48, Harshav co-edited the "להבות" publication in Munich.

In 1948, Harshav illegally immigrated to Israel as part of the Aliyah Bet. His parents and sister were detained in a British camp in Cyprus and arrived later. He enlisted in the Palmach and fought in the Israeli War of Independence, the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war, as part of the fifth battalion until 1949.

Academic career

1948-1986: Living in Israel

From 1948 to 1986, Harshav lived in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. From 1949-57, he studied for degrees in Hebrew literature, Biblical Studies, Jewish History, and Yiddish literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1948, he published a Yiddish poetry book, "שטויבן (Dusts)". In 1951 he was amongst the founders of The group of Yiddish poets "יונג ישראל". Meanwhile, he also founded and edited the literary journal "Likrat" (Hebrew: לקראת) with Aryeh Sivan, Moshe Dor, and Natan Zach. He studied for a doctorate in comparative literature at Yale University under René Wellek.

Harshav taught Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1954-57 and 1960-63. From 1963-66 he served as a lecturer of comparative literature and Russian literature. In 1965, he became the founding head of the Department of Poetics and Comparative Literature at the University of Tel Aviv. In 1968, he founded Hasifrut, a scientific Hebrew literature magazine published by the University of Tel Aviv. That year, the university named Harshav a professor of literary theory and comparative literature.

From 1971-73, Harshav went on sabbatical to Berkeley, California, where he was a guest professor of comparative literature and Slavic literature at UCB. He took-up the same position in 1977, and in the autumn of 1978. In the summer of 1972, Harshav was a professor of literary theory at the University of Indiana in Bloomington.

From 1970-71 and 1973-74, Harshav served as a professor of comparative literature at the Hebrew University, at the same time as at the University of Tel Aviv. In 1975, he founded the Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, under the aegis of Tel Aviv University. He stood at the head of the institute until 1987. He founded and edited the international publication of the Porter Institute, Poetics and Theory of Literature. After the publication was shut down, he founded Poetics Today, a quarterly journal published by Duke University Press. In 1974, he founded the series Literature, Meaning, Culture (Hebrew: ספרות, משמעות, תרבות) and served as editor-in-chief until 1986.

In 1976-77, Harshav was a fellow at the centre of advanced degrees in Hebrew literature at Oxford University. In the autumn of 1980 he was a guest professor of classical and modern Hebrew and Jewish literature at Harvard University. In 1982, he was appointed to the Porter Chair of literary theory and poetics at the University of Tel Aviv.

In the summer of 1983, Harshav was a professor of poetics and structuralism in a summer program hosted by Indiana University, as well as as a professor of Yiddish linguistics at the University of Colombia. From 1983-85, he was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. In the summer of 1985, he was a guest professor of comparative literature at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. In the winter of 1986, he was a guest professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Colombia. From 1986-87, he was a guest professor of comparative literature at Yale University. From 1986 to his death in 2015, Harshav lived in New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale University is situated, and became a US citizen.

1987-2015: Living in Connecticut

In 1987, Harshav took early retirement from the University of Tel Aviv and joined Yale University as a professor of comparative literature, where he was appointed at the Blaustein Chair of Hebrew Language and Literature. He also became a professor of Slavic Languages at Yale in 1992. He upheld both of these positions until his retirement in 2011. From 1998-2000, he was the director of advanced degrees at the department of comparative literature.

From 1971-98, Harshav was a member of the board of directors of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS). From 1972, he was a member of the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel. From 1993, he was a fellow of the United States Authors Guild. From 1985-91, he was a member of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA). In 1995, Harshav was chosen as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 1995-96, he was a Distinguished Professor at the Open University of Israel.

In 1997, Harshav received a silver medal from the University of Rome Tor Vergata along with his wife, Barbara Harshav, for his studies and translations. In 2004, he won the Koret Jewish Book Award for biographical literature, for his two-volumed book about Marc Chagall, Marc Chagall and his Times. In 2000, he won the Jerusalem Prize. He won the EMET Prize in 2005 for his life's work, and the Akveyhu Prize (Hebrew: עקביהו) for the study of Hebrew poetry in 2008.

Harshav published an anthology of his Yiddish and Hebrew poems. He translated his own work into Hebrew from Yiddish, English, and German. He also translated into English.

Awards

• December 1998 - Silver Medal, University of University of Rome Tor Vergata (along with wife, Barbara Harshav)
• 1999 - An Overcoat for Benjamin (Hebrew: אדרת לבנימין): Papers on Literature for Benjamin Harshav, on his Seventieth Birthday
• June 2000 - Jerusalem Uri-Zvi Grinberg (Hebrew: אורי-צבי גרינברג) Prize for Poetry and the Study of Poetry
• 29 March 2004 - Koret Jewish Book Award for Biography, Autobiography, and Literary Studies, for his book Marc Chagall and his Times
• 2005 - EMET Prize for Art, Science, and Culture
• June 20, 2008 - Y. Akavyahu Prize for the lifetime study of poetry

Bibliography

• Ritmus Ha-Rakhavut (The Rhythm of Largeness): Theory and Practice in Uri-Zvi Grinberg's Expressionist Poetry, Ha-Kibutz Ha-Meuchad, 1978
• The Poems of Gabi Daniel (Hebrew: שירי גבי דניאל), Siman Kri'a, Tel Aviv, 1990
• The Art of Poetry, Carmel Publishers, 2000
• Poetry of the Hebrew Revival: A Critical and Historical Anthology, Tel Aviv, The Open University of Israel, 2000
• Fields and Frames: Studies in the Theory of Literature and Meaning, Carmel Publishers, 2000
• The Poetry of the Self in New York: Portraits of Four Yiddish Poets and a Selection of their Poems in Hebrew Translation, Carmel Publishers, 2002
• The Other Culture: Yiddish and Hebrew Dialogue, Carmel Publishers, 2006
• Meter and Rhythm in Modern Hebrew Poetry, Carmel Publishers, The Open University of Israel, 2008
• Language in the Time of Revolution, Los Angeles and Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1993. ISBN 9780804735407

Books edited

• Exile of the Poets by Bertold Brecht, translated from German and edited. Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad, 1978.
• Poet in New York by Jacob Glatstein, translated from Yiddish and edited. Siman Kri'a and Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad.
• Manifestoes of Modernism. Carmel Publishers, 2001.

Books translated

Into Hebrew

• Poems and Dramatic Visions (poems translated from Yiddish by Harshav, visions translated by Shimshon Meltzer).
• In the Chariot of Fire: Poems and Long Poems (translated from Yiddish).
• The Golden Peacock: Poems and Long Poems (translated from Yiddish), Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Mosad Bialik.
• Exile of the Poets: Selected Poetry 1914-1956 by Bertolt Brecht (translated from German), Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad, 1978.
• Tevye the Milkman and other Monologues (translated from Yiddish), Siman Kri'a and Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad, 1983.
• Sibir: long poem, Abraham Sutzkever (translated from Yiddish), Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad, 1983.
• Modernist Poetry: Selected Translations (translated from English, French, Russian, German, and Yiddish), Am Oved, 1990.
• The Poems of Gabi Daniel (Hebrew: שירי גבי דניאל), Siman Kri'a, Tel Aviv, 1990
• The Street Drummer: Selected Poetry, Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Mosad Bialik, 1993.
• Introspectivism in New York, including a selection of poems from A. Leyeles, Moznayim, 1986.
• Collected Poetry, Avoth Yeshurun, Siman Kri'a and Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad, 2001
• A Gathering of Silences, Selcted Poems, Avraham Sutzkever (translated from Yiddish), Am Oved, 2005.

Into English

• Akhziv, Caesarea and One Love, Yehuda Amichai (translated from Yiddish), Schocken Publishing House, 1996.
• Yeuhda Amichai, A Life of Poetry, (translated from Hebrew), Harper-Collins, 1994

Festschrift in his honor

A Festschrift was written for Benjamin Harshav on his seventieth birthday by Ziva Ben-Porat (Israeli editor) under the name An Overcoat for Benjamin: Papers on Literature for Benjamin Harshav (Hebrew: אדרת לבנימין). Published by Ha'Kibutz Ha'Meuchad and the Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, the work had two volumes. The first was published in 1999 and the second in 2001.