The life in the kibbutz and the history of Israel were the topics of his books. Numerous prizes and honorary doctorates he received would. Now, the writer, Essayist, and peace activist, has died at 79.
Amos Klausner was born, Amos Oz, at 4. May 1939 in Jerusalem, the light of the world. The Boy grew up in one of the Eastern European Jews dominated city quarter. His father’s family had fled after the 1917 Russian Revolution from Odessa to Vilnius in 1933 to Palestine emigrated. A part of his family perished in the Holocaust.
After the tragic suicide of his mother, Amos joined at the age of only 15 years, the kibbutz Chulda. To the chagrin of his father, he laid there, his family name and took the name Oz, which in Hebrew means as much as power or strength. Now, Amos Oz, has died at the age of 79 years, surrounded by his family.
His daughter, Fania Oz-Salzgeber paid tribute to her father on Twitter, as a man of peace and moderation:
Surrounded by many languages
The father of Amos Oz, came from a scholarly family and language as a librarian and literary scholar twelve languages, is the mother of Amos Oz, one of seven languages. Their son, they taught, nevertheless, only Hebrew. Ironically, returned to Oz later in multilingualism: His works have been translated into over forty languages, making him one of the most translated Israeli author.
From 1960 to 1963, studied Amos Oz at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, literature, and philosophy. After his studies, he returned to the kibbutz, in 1986, he moved with his family in Arad in the Negev desert. At the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beesheba, he taught from 1987 to 2005, Hebrew literature, and was awarded in 1993 the prestigious Agnon chair in contemporary Hebrew literature.
Pugnacious spirit: the writer Amos Oz
In 2014, he was awarded by Trinity College, Dublin honorary doctorate. “The great character writers of our time”- so the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called him once” – was showered with awards, from the German side, he was awarded the peace prize of the German book trade and the Goethe prize, the Heinrich Heine prize and the Siegfried-Lenz prize.
Writing in the political field of tension
Amos Oz (li) in the case of the olive harvest in the West Bank
The social micro-cosmos in the kibbutz, the variety of tensions and uncertainties in the still-young state of Israel, and the ongoing conflicts between the Israelis and the Palestinians, are the main themes in the extensive work of Amos Oz. Already with his first volume of stories, “Where the jackals howl,” he showed up in 1965 in the literary world.
World famous Oz in 1968, his second novel, “My Michael”, which appeared in German in 1976. The focus is on a young woman who takes refuge after the Failure of her marriage in her Dreams to two Arab twin brothers.
His character doesn’t care much for politics, but, nevertheless, is reflected in their fate, the process of determination of identity of the young Jewish state. In Amos Oz’s novel was for the first time broke the taboo of relations between Jews and Arabs.
His numerous, of his life in the kibbutz-inspired novels including the Bestseller “A story of love and darkness”, “The perfect peace”, “A woman”, “The third state”, “were not primed When the night night,” “another place,” “verses on life and death,” “Alone with the sea” and “Judas” – all autobiographical.
Peace rebel from the desert
After the Six-day war, Amos Oz, co-founder and internationally-known representative of the since 1977, the existing peace movement “Shalom Achschaw” (Peace Now). Oz made his political commitment is not popular everywhere. Before he got awarded the 1998 Israel prize for literature, broke that is why in Israel, a heated controversy over his political position.
In three Lectures, the thought, Amos Oz, 2002 at the University of Tübingen and were later published in the book “How to cure a fanatic,” admitted he was aware of some misunderstandings: The Israeli peace movement was “not twin sister” of the German peace movement. And he was not a pacifist in the sentimental sense of the word, but an advocate of political compromise.
Oz fought as a soldier at the Front of the 6-day war
Amoz Oz struggled during the Six-day war on the Sinai, and during the Yom Kippur war on the Golan heights. As an active soldier, he has repeatedly emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense, which earned him, in turn, criticism from the other side. At the same time, he condemned the settlement policy of the Israeli government.
The pacifist Slogan “Make love not war,” thought Oz was unrealistic. It should better be called “Make peace not love” said Oz in numerous Interviews, but this was just about political compromise. Fanaticism, also the theme of his novel “Black Box” that could not be cured, but only within limits.
“A fair divorce between Israel and Palestine”
Thoughtful: the writer in August, 2006
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was in favour of Oz is always a Two-States-education, as he stressed in a DW Interview 2014: “My proposal is to accept the conditions for a Two-state solution between Israel and the West Bank: Two capitals in Jerusalem, both sides accepted Land swaps, removal of settlements. (…)
But I’ll tell you what my hope and my prayer for the future of Israel. I would like to see Israel for all times from the front pages of Newspapers around the world disappear and would like to see instead, as it conquered settlements in the literature-, art-, music – and architecture-supplements to, occupied and built. This is my dream for the future.”
Literature is more than policy
Amos Oz, has been perceived by the time of his life as a political Intellectual, and as a peace fighter, and as a mediator between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Oz wanted to be a literary work, not on a political message reduce.
Many of his novels have been nominated for literary prizes
He pointed out in his Speeches, and publications time and again that the problems of human relations would not lead to the conditions of life in a specific political context, but on the deeper abysses of the human soul – a soul that lives only happen in a certain country at a certain time.
Now the world-famous Israeli writer, died in Jerusalem, as the Israeli Newspapers “Haaretz” and “The Jerusalem Post” reported, citing his daughter. Amos Oz, the price was always a candidate for the literature Nobel. He was 79 years old.
The German foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, acknowledged Amos Oz as a “bold, fearless advocate of peace in the Middle East”. Maas stressed that Oz had described, with his “extraordinary literary works”, also a piece of Israeli history and apparent certainties into question. “He has brought us again and again with his wise words of caution to Think about and reminds us that peace only comes when we fight for it,” said the SPD politician.