Elazar Benyoëtz (*1937 in Wiener Neustadt, Austria) is an

Israeli Israeli may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel * Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel * Modern Hebrew, a language * ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008 * Guni Israeli ...

writer. He was born in Wiener Neustadt to a family of

Austrian Jews The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the Jewish diaspora, exodus of Jews from History of ancient Israel and Judah#Roman occupation, Judea under Roman occupation. Over the course of many centuries, the political status of the ...

. In 1939, the family emigrated to Israel, where he grew up speaking the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

. His first volume of poetry was published in 1957, and Benyoëtz has lived as a freelance writer ever since. In 1959, he was ordained as a rabbi in Jerusalem. In 1963, he came to Berlin as part of the Ford Foundation's "Artists in Residence" program, and in 1965, together with Renate Heuer, he founded the Bibliographia Judaica, to date the largest encyclopedia on German-Jewish writers. He has lived in Israel again since 1969. He is married to Renée Koppel, an Algerian-Israeli calligrapher and miniaturist specialised in Judaica. Elazar Benyoëtz received the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize in 1988 and has been awarded the Federal Order of Merit for his services to the German language. In 2021, Benyoëtz curated a small but essential extract of ca. 600 books from his 10,000-volume comprising libraries in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, which is one of the last and largest private book collections in Israel to contain the German-Jewish literary canon. He presented the selection as a gift to th
Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center
at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

References

{{Authority control Israeli writers Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany