Hazaz, Haim

(1898-1973)

   Prominent Israeli Hebrew novelist and playwright. He was born in Ukraine. After receiving a traditional education, he wandered throughout Russia during World War I and much of the Russian Revolution. He fled from Crimea to Istanbul, Turkey, in 1921 and later lived in Paris before immigrating (see ALIYA) to Palestine in 1932. His early writings in Palestine focused on the confused world of immigrants and pioneers in the renewed homeland. During the 1940s and 1950s, Hazaz turned his attention to the status of Palestine's Yemenite Jews, including the tension between their traditional ways and the secular mores of modern Israel. His last novel, Bekolar Ehad (In the Same Gallows), examined the world of the Jewish underground groups in the period leading up to the end of British mandate. Hazaz died in Jerusalem.