Haim Sabato

Haim Sabato is an Israeli rabbi and author.[1]

Biography

Haim Sabato was born to a family of Aleppan descent in Cairo. In the 1950s, his family immigrated to Israel and lived in a transit camp in Kiryat Yovel, Jerusalem. He studied at the Talmud Torah in Bayit Vegan and Netiv Meir yeshiva high school, also in Bayit Vegan. Rabbi Aryeh Bina, rosh yeshiva of Netiv Meir, was one of his key influences.

After graduation, he joined the Hesder program at Yeshivat Hakotel, in Jerusalem's Old City, which combines yeshiva study with military service. His experiences during the Yom Kippur War, at the age of 21, led him to write Adjusting Sights.

After the war, Sabato spent the next few years at Yeshivat Mercaz Harav, the spiritual home of religious Zionism. After receiving rabbinical ordination, Sabato co-founded the yeshiva in Ma'aleh Adumim in 1977.

Literary style

Sabato's lyrical writing, with sentences studded with phrases drawn from and referring to passages in the Bible and Talmud has won him numerous fans and made him a symbol of the "pitfalls" of translating works of literature form one language to another.[2] He has published four novels in addition to works of Torah-content.

Published works

Sabato's first book, Emet Mi Eretz Titzmach, (published in English as Aleppo Tales), is a collection of short stories relating to his family's ancestral home and community of Aleppo, Syria.

Sabato was awarded the Sapir Prize for Literature in its inaugural year, as well as the Yitzhak Sadeh Prize, for his second work, Teum Kavanot (Adjusting Sights in the English translation), a moving account of the experiences of a soldier in the Yom Kippur War. The book has also been made into a film.

His third publication, KeAfapey Shachar (published in English as Dawning of the Day: A Jerusalem Tale), tells the story of Ezra Siman Tov, a religious Jerusalemite coming to terms with a changing world.

Sabato's latest work, Bo'ee HaRuach (published in English as From the Four Winds), describes his experiences as an "oleh chadash" (a new immigrant) in the Israeli "ma'abarot" - transit camps - of the 1950s.[3]

Works translated into English

References

  1. ↑ Balint, Judy Lash (2007-03-31). Jerusalem Diaries II: What's Really Happening in Israel. Xulon Press. pp. 11–. ISBN 9781602660441. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  2. ↑ Lost in translation?, BENJAMIN ROSENDAHL , April 7, 2009, Jerusalem Post
  3. ↑ From the four winds