Ephraim Kishon
1924–2005 2 entries
Biography
Ephraim Kishon was an Israeli satirist, writer and film director, one of the most widely read humorists of the twentieth century. Born Ferenc Hoffmann in Budapest in 1924, he survived several labour camps during the Second World War and, after the war, studied art in Budapest and began to write satire. In 1949 he emigrated to Israel, where an immigration official gave him the name Ephraim Kishon, and within a few years he was writing in Hebrew.
For decades he wrote a daily satirical column in the newspaper Maariv, poking fun at bureaucracy, politics and family life. His collections of short humorous stories were translated into dozens of languages and sold tens of millions of copies, above all in German. His films Sallah Shabati and The Policeman were both nominated for the Academy Award. He received the Israel Prize in 2002 and died in 2005 in Switzerland, where he had spent his last years.
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