Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk dies at age 83
Winner of numerous literary prizes for works on Holocaust, Israeli wars and culture instructed that no funeral be held; body to be ‘donated to science’
Israeli writer, journalist, and theater critic Yoram Kaniuk passed away Saturday at the age of 83.
Kaniuk died at Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv, after several years of deteriorating health due to cancer. At his request, a funeral will not be held in his honor as he wished to donate his body to science.
“I donated my body to science so that I will continue to exist a few years after I die and the young doctors will learn about me what doctors know these days about what they do. In my mind for a moment, I gained a few more years, and like Moses, no one knew my burial place because I made sure there would not be one, and from this, my descendants will benefit,” he had written in a post in Haaretz.
In April, Kaniuk gave an extended interview to the Times of Israel on his life and his memoir “1948.”
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said she was sorry to hear of his passing: “He was a wonderful author, and fought for Israel’s soul and values until the very last day.”
“He wrote this country’s curriculum vitae. He sometimes was very critical but he undoubtedly loved this country,” said Labor party head and opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich.
Sports and Culture Minister Limor Livnat called Kaniuk “one of our age’s top writers” and said his books helped shape the Israeli ethos.
Kaniuk was born and raised in Tel Aviv and fought in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. He published 17 novels and was the recipient of numerous literary prizes.
His first book, “The Acrophile” was published in 1960, the story of an Israeli man who moves to New York after the War of Independence.
One of his best-known novels about the Holocaust, “Adam Resurrected,” published in 1971, was adapted into a movie in 2008 starring Jeff Goldblum.
In 2011, his book “1948” won the coveted literary award, the Sapir Prize.
That same year, Kaniuk famously went to court to have the “Jewish” status removed from his Israeli identification card, demanding to be registered as “irreligious,” as he did not wish to be part of a “Jewish Iran.”
Kaniuk wished to equate his standing to that of his grandchild, who was registered as “without religion” at the Population Registry.
“I was sick and tired of an extremist right-wing religious establishment taking over our lives. We are a secular majority and we just give in to it. I hope (my) court ruling will change this,” he told Reuters after his victory.
At the time, he told Haaretz: “The son of my daughter, who was born in Israel and served in the army, is my grandchild, and I was born and lived in Israel, and my mother Sarah came here in 1910. Because my wife Miranda is not Jewish, my two daughters and grandchild, who were born here, are a non-Jewish minority in my house. I am so terrified by these gentiles that I want to be exactly what they are, to only be part of the Jewish nation. Because the State of Israel does not recognize the Jewish nationality, they suggested at the Interior Ministry that I convert to Christianity or Islam, but to be a member of the Jewish nation without the religion is impossible. If that is so, I want to be without religion so that at the age of 81 I can share this classification with my grandchild.”
