User:Sebastianne13/Benjamin Harshav

Benjamin Harshav (Hrushovsky) is an Israeli-American scholar in comparative literature, Yiddish poet (under the pseudonym "H. Benjamin"), Hebrew poet (under the pseudonym "Gabi Daniel"), translator, and editor. He is a professor emeritus of literature in Tel Aviv University and professor emeritus of comparative literature in Hebrew grammar and literature and in Slavic literature in Yale University. He is founding editor of Poetics Today journal and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture (2005).

Biography
Benjamin Harshav, son of Dr. Avraham Hrushovski-Agasi, and Dvora Freidkes-Hrushovski was born in 1928 in Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania). His father taught history in several gymnasiums, and at the Hebrew Seminary for Teachers, and later in Haifa, Israel. His mother was principal of the Gurvitz Yiddish School. Hrushovski completed his studies at a Jewish, secular elementary school and went on studying at a Yiddish secular gymnasium.

In 1941, when Germany invaded the USSR during Operation Barbarossa, the family fled eastward to the Ural where they lived until 1946. Hrushovski graduated from a Russian high school in 1945, then studied mathematics and physics for one year in Chkalov (now Orenburg), and was awarded first prize for first year students. From 1946 to 1948 he lived in communist Poland and in Germany. In 1946 he joined the Dror ("freedom") movement (later Hekhaluts Hatsa'ir, "the young pioneer"). In the years 1947 to 1948 he was co-editor of the Lehavot journal for the Young Maapil in Munich.

In 1948 he immigrated in Aliyah Bet to Israel where he enlisted in the paramilitary Palmach and fought in its 5th Battalion throughout the 1948 Arab-Israeli War until 1949.

From 1948 to 1986 Harshav lived in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Between 1949 and 1957 he attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, completing his Bachelor's degree summa cum laude and his Master's degree cum laude in Hebrew literature, Bible studies, history of the Jewish people, and Yiddish literature. In 1948 Shtoyben ("Dust"), his book of poems in Yiddish, was published in Munich. In 1951 he was one of the founders of the "Yung" Group of Yiddish Writers in Israel. At the time he also served, together with Aryeh Sivan, Moshe Dor, and Nathan Zach as co-founder and editor of the journal Likrat ("Toward"). From 1957 to 1960 he pursued his Doctorate in comparative literature at Yale University, supervised by René Wellek.

During the years 1954-1957 and 1960-1963 Harshav taught Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also served, from 1963 to 1966, as lecturer of Russian and comparative literature. In 1965 he was appointed senior lecturer of Hebrew literature at Tel Aviv University, and in 1966 he established and headed the General Theory of Literature Department there. In 1968 he founded the journal Hasifrut ("Literature") and became Associate Professor of literary theory and comparative literature, becoming a Full Professor in 1972. He was a visiting professor of comparative and Slavic literature at the University of California, Berkeley between 1971-1973 and 1977-1978. In summer 1972 he was professor of literary theory at Indiana University Bloomington.

In the years 1970-1971, and 1973-1974 Harshav served as professor of comparative literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (parallel to his professorship at Tel Aviv University). In 1975 he founded the The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, and headed it until his retirement in 1987. He founded and edited The Porter Institute's international quarterly journal, Poetics and Theory of Literature, nowadays known as Poetics Today, edited at the Porter Institute; published by Duke University Press. In 1974 he founded and served as chief editor of the Literature / Meaning / Culture series published by The Porter Institue, and the Ha-Kibbutz Ha-meuchad Press, until 1986. From 1976-1977 he was member of The Center for Advanced Degrees in Hebrew Literature at Oxford University. In Autumn of 1980 he was visiting professor of Hebrew, Modern and Classical Literature at Harvard University. In 1982 he was entrusted with the Porter Chair of Poetics and Literary Theory in Tel Aviv University.

In the summer of 1983 he was professor at the summer program for Poetics and studies in Structuralism in Indiana University, Bloomington, and professor of Etymology and Yiddish Literature in Columbia University. During 1983-1985 he was a member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin. Summer 1985 Harshav was visiting professor of Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Winter 1986 he was visiting professor of Middle East Studies in Columbia University. And during 1986-1987 he was visiting professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Yale University, Connecticut. Since 1986 he has been living in New Haven and naturalized in the USA.

In 1987 Harshav left Tel Aviv University and joined the faculty of Yale University as professor of Comparative Literature and took up the Blaustein Chair of Hebrew Language and Literature. In 1992 he was also appointed professor of Slavic languages ​​at Yale. These appointments he held until his retirement. During 1998-2000 he was director of Advanced Degree Studies in the Department of Comparative Literature.

Between 1971-1998 he was a member of the executive committee of the International Association of Semiotic Studies (IASS).

From 1972 he was member of the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel, and from 1993 a member of the U.S. Authors Guild. During 1985-1991 he was a member of the International Comparative Literature Association, ICLR. In 1995 he was selected as member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1995-1996 he was Distinguished Professor at the Open University.

In 1997 together with his wife, Barbara Harshav, he received a silver medal for translations and research from University of Rome Tor Vergata. In 2004 he won the Koret Jewish Book Award, in the genre of biography, for his two-volume work on Marc Chagall Marc Chagall and His Times: A Documentary Narrative (Stanford University Press, 2004). In the year 2000 he won the Uri Zvi Grinberg Jerusalem Poetry Prize. In 2005 Harshav won the Emet Prize for Art, Science and Culture for his life's work. In 2008 he won the Akaviahu Award for the Study of Hebrew Poetry. Harshav published an anthology of his poems in Yiddish, as well as poems in Hebrew under the pseudonym Gaby Daniel.

He translates into English, as well as from English, Yiddish, and German, into Hebrew.

Harshav retired in 2011. His spouse is translator, Barbara Harshav. His son, Ehud Hrushovsky, is professor of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of The Israel Academy of Sciences.