Creator Bio
Chaim Hazaz
1898–1973
The Hebrew novelist and short-story writer Chaim Hazaz was born in a village in the province of Kiev and received a traditional Jewish education. He left home at age sixteen and lived a peripatetic life until 1921 in Russian cities. During these years of turbulence and upheaval, he witnessed events that became the foundation of his works. From 1921 to 1931, he lived in Istanbul, Paris, and Berlin. He settled in Jerusalem in 1931 and remained there the rest of his life. Central to most of his work is the tension between the old Jewish world and the wish for redemption through political movements such as Zionism. He was one of the most popular Hebrew writers of his time.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
Revolutionary Chapters
The war went on and would not be stopped. On the contrary. It proved futile to hold it to any schedule or limit. At no prearranged time would the land be quiet, not at harvest time, not near winter…
Primary Source
The Sermon
For a while there was quiet—a total, final quiet in the room. Then the chairman stirred, beetling his heavy eyebrows, and spoke with gruff, ironical severity: “Comrade Yudka, I call you to order! If…
Primary Source
On Literature and the State
Our state is young, with a girl’s years, just fourteen. Still without her shoes, as the poet says. But she seems old, many generations old. In these few years, old age has pounced on her. No one is…