Son Michael: 'A wonderful way to connect with my father'

National Library gets Meir Shalev archive, will restrict access per author’s wish

Institution set to comply with literary icon’s request to keep much of his archive out of public sight for up to 10 years, while making other items accessible in 2025

Israeli author meir Shalev speaks at the 25th Jerusalem National Book Festival held at the International Conference Center in Jerusalem. February 22, 2011. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Israeli author meir Shalev speaks at the 25th Jerusalem National Book Festival held at the International Conference Center in Jerusalem. February 22, 2011. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

The National Library of Israel received the archive of late literary icon and journalist Meir Shalev, but much of it will remain hidden from the public eye for up to 10 years, as per the author’s request.

The renowned author’s archive, which includes extensive correspondence with fellow writers and intellectuals, drafts of books, research, and lectures, arrived in the library in September and is now being processed, Matan Barzilai, head of Archives and Special Collections at the National Library of Israel, told The Times of Israel on Monday.

However, fans of the beloved author might be in for a disappointment, as Barzilai also confirmed that the library will comply with the family’s request – also made by the author prior to his death — to restrict public access to much of the archive for up to 10 years. Other items will be made available to the public in 2025.

One of Israel’s most prominent authors, Shalev wrote seven novels, eight nonfiction books, and 14 children’s books, and his work has been translated into 30 languages, the library said in a statement Monday.

He also wrote a weekly column in Yedioth Ahronoth for three decades.

Upon signing an official agreement with the library in August, Shalev’s son Michael noted that “saying goodbye to these documents and papers is personal and complicated, but also a wonderful way to connect with my father – through the National Library, which is where words, writing, and creativity are at the center,” according to the statement.

At the signing ceremony of the agreement to deposit Meir Shalev’s personal archive with the
National Library of Israel. Shown (left to right): Prof. David Harel, president of the Israel Academy of Sciences
and chairman of the National Library Council; Oren Weinberg, CEO of the National Library of Israel; Shalev’s
son Michael Shalev; cousins Naomi and Amos Shalev. (Michael Zekri/via the National Library of Israel)

Oren Weinberg, director of the National Library of Israel, said: “Even after the authors’ archives are taken in, cataloged, and made digitally accessible, in full or in part, we never forget the family members who agreed to leave these pages and memories with us.”

Shalev died in 2023 at the age of 74, after a bout with cancer. He began writing novels at the age of 40, publishing “The Blue Mountain” (“Roman Russi” in Hebrew), about pioneers in the Jezreel Valley, in 1988.

His masterful use of Hebrew helped bring to life recurring themes that included biblical associations and mythic concepts and often featured women as a source of power behind the men in their complex lives.

Shalev’s first published works, however, were books for children and the volume “Bible Now,” a personal look at biblical episodes.

Shalev told The Times of Israel in 2020 that the impetus to write children’s books came from his memories as an avid young reader, when each book offered magic and an escape from reality.

“No novel for adults, even the best ones, moved me or excited me the way a good children’s book did when I was 5 or 6,” said Shalev, who waxed poetic about an original translation of Huckleberry Finn into biblical Hebrew. “A book is the creation of the writer and the reader, and there is this magic in children’s stories.”

Israeli writer Meir Shalev attends the funeral of Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua, in Kibbutz Ein Carmel, on June 15, 2022. (Shir Torem/Flash90)

Shalev was born in 1948 in the historic farming community of Nahalal, the country’s first moshav, to poet Yitzhak and Batya Shalev, who moved the family to Jerusalem’s Kiryat Moshe neighborhood and later to the Sea of Galilee community of Ginosar.

At the time of his death, he lived in Moshav Alonei Aba, a 15-minute drive from Nahalal, and the site of a former German Templer community known as Waldheim that Shalev described in his 2002 novel “Fontanelle.”

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