Eli Amir.html



Eli Amir (Hebrew: אלי עמיר‎, born September 26, 1937) is an Israeli writer and activist.

Biography

Amir was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1937. He immigrated to Israel with his family in 1950 and went to school in Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1964 to 1968 he served as adviser on Arab affairs to the Prime Minister of Israel and as envoy for the Ministry of Immigration Absorption to the United States. Since 1984, he has been director-general of the youth immigration department at the Jewish Agency.¹²

Activism

Amir has frequently called for social justice and denounced what he has described as the deterioration of the Israeli welfare state.³ In 2007, when his book Jasmine was published in Arabic in Egypt, he expressed hope that more Israeli books be spread in the Arab world, saying "How can there be peace without us knowing each other?".⁴ He repeated that statement in a literary soiree held by the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.⁵ He also signed a petition calling for Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert to negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas.⁶ In 2006, when President of Israel Moshe Katsav was indicted with rape, several Israeli websites suggested Amir as a successor. Amir himself told Maariv that he would seriously consider such an offer.⁷

Literature

Scapegoat (1983) is a semi-autobiographical story of Nuri, a 13 year old immigrant boy from Iraq who is sent to a Kibbutz and his absorption into Israeli society.⁸ Farewell, Baghdad (1992) is the story of 17-year-old Kabi Amari, an Iraqi Jewish boy growing up in a Zionist family.⁹ Saul's Love (1998) is a romance between Saul, born to a a deeply rooted Sephardi family from Jerusalem, and Chaya, an Ashkenazi holocaust survivor.¹⁰ Jasmine (2005) is also largely autobiographical. The book's protagonist, Nuri Amari, is a new immigrant from Iraq, who is appointed to a government post in East Jerusalem in the wake of the Six-Day War. He meets Jasmine, a young Palestinian widow from a wealthy Christian refugee family.⁵

Acclaim

Scapegoat is included in the Israeli secondary school syllabus,¹¹ and was adapted into a play and a television series.¹ He received the Youth Immigration's Jubilee Prize (1983), the Jewish Literature Prize (in Mexico, 1985), the Ahi Award (1994), Am Oved's Jubilee Prize (1994), the Yigal Alon Prize for Outstanding Service to Society (1997), the Book Publishers Association's Platinum Prize (1998) and the Prime Minister's Prize (2002).¹

Bibliography

Translated into English

• Amir, Eli (1987). Scapegoat: A Novel, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. pp. 218. 

In Hebrew

• Scapegoat, Am Oved, 1984, [Tarnegol Kaparot]
• Farewell, Baghdad, Am Oved, 1992 [Mafriah Ha-Yonim]
• Saul's Love, Am Oved, 1998 [Ahavat Shaul]
• Jasmine, Am Oved, 2005 [Yasmin]

References

External links

• wsterneberg1 (Contributor). I am an Arab Jew. Retrieved on 2008-05-06. Event occurs at 383 seconds.