British-Israeli author, literary critic, translator, and diplomat
Harold Fisch (25 March 1923,
Birmingham – 8 November 2001,
Jerusalem ), also known as Aharon Harel-Fisch (
Hebrew : אַהֲרֹן הַרְאֵל-פִישׁ ), was a British-Israeli author,
literary critic , translator, and diplomat.
[1] He was a Professor of
English and
Comparative literature at
Bar-Ilan University , of which he served as
Rector from 1968 to 1971.
[2] He was awarded the
Israel Prize for Literature in 2000.
[3]
Biography
Harold (Aharon) Fisch was born in
Birmingham to Rebecca (née Swift) and Rabbi Dr. Solomon Fisch. His mother was the sister of Rabbi Morris Swift, who was a
dayan of the
London Beth Din for nearly two decades.
[4] Fisch's father, born in
Wolbrom ,
Poland , studied at Rabbi
Solomon Breuer 's yeshiva in
Frankfurt before emigrating to England in 1920, where he received a doctorate from the
University of Manchester .
[5]
[6] As a child, Fisch moved between
Liverpool , Birmingham,
Sheffield , and
Leeds , where his father took up posts as a
congregational rabbi .
[7]
Fisch began his undergraduate degree in
English literature at the
University of Sheffield in 1940, at the age of 17. His studies were interrupted by his service in the
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve from 1942 to 1945, as an officer on
HMS Meynell and HMS Kildary .
[3] He completed his
B.A. in 1946, and was appointed Lecturer in English at the
University of Leeds the following year, meanwhile serving as chairman of the
Inter-University Jewish Federation .
[8] In 1948, he received his
BLitt from the
University of Oxford , with a thesis on
Calvinist bishop
Joseph Hall .
[9]
Academic career
In 1957, Fisch
immigrated to Israel with his wife and four children, and accepted an
associate professorship in English literature at the newly founded
Bar-Ilan University .
[10] He was appointed
full professor in 1964, and held the position of
Rector from 1968 to 1971.
[11] Fisch founded the Kotler Institute for Judaism and Contemporary Thought in 1971, and the Lechter Institute for Literary Research in 1981, of which he served as chairman until his retirement from Bar-Ilan in 1987.
[12]
[13]
Fisch was responsible for the
English translation of the
Tanakh for the
Koren
Jerusalem Bible (1964), based on
Michael Friedländer 's Jewish Family Bible ,
[14]
[15] which is still in publication and on its third edition.
[16]
Zionist activism
Fisch participated in the establishment of the
Neo-Zionist
Movement for Greater Israel after the
Six-Day War .
[17]
[18] His 1972 work A Zionist Revolution included a defense of
Gush Emunim , based on the ideas of
Menachem Kasher and
Abraham Isaac Kook .
[19]
[20] During the era of Prime Minister
Menachem Begin , Fisch was a member of the
Israeli delegation to the 32nd
General Assembly of the United Nations.
[17] He declined an offer from the Prime Minister to occupy the position of
Ambassador of Israel to the Netherlands .
[3]
Awards and recognition
Fisch was awarded the
Israel Prize for Literature in 2000. He died on 8 November 2001 of a
tumor discovered two weeks earlier.
[21]
Published works
References
^ Davies, Lloyd (2016).
" "Shadowy Presences": Harold Fisch's Criticism and a Jewish Reading of Romanticism" . In Spector, Sheila A. (ed.). Romanticism/Judaica: A Convergence of Cultures . London: Routledge. pp. 169–182.
ISBN
978-1-315-60701-6 .
OCLC
950005790 .
^
"Author Page: Harold Fisch" . Bar-Ilan University Press . Retrieved 20 September 2020 .
^
a
b
c
"Recipients of the Israel Prize: Prof. A. Harel Fisch" .
Israel Prize (in Hebrew). 15 August 2012. Retrieved 20 September 2020 .
^
"Morris Swift Dead at 76" . Daily News Bulletin . Vol. 66, no. 179.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency . 21 September 1983.
^ Efron, Noah J. (2016).
"Menachem Fisch: An Intellectual Portrait" . In Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava; Hughes, Aaron W. (eds.). Menachem Fisch: The Rationality of Religious Dispute . Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers. Vol. 18. Leiden: Brill. pp. 1–32.
ISBN
978-90-04-32356-8 .
^
Fisch, Menachem (27 September 2017).
"Ambivalence as a Jewish Value" .
Tablet . Retrieved 20 September 2020 .
^
Rubinstein, William D. ; Jolles, Michael A.; Rubinstein, Hillary L., eds. (2011).
"Fisch, Solomon" . The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History . London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 281–282.
ISBN
978-0-230-30466-6 .
OCLC
793104984 .
^ Fisch, Harold (2018).
"Bar-Ilan University—A Question of Identity" . In Abramson, Glendad; Parfitt, Tudor (eds.). Jewish Education and Learning: Published in Honour of Dr. David Patterson on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday . Taylor & Francis.
ISBN
978-0-429-64749-9 .
^ Gilboa, Shaked (2007).
"Fish, Harel" . In
Berenbaum, Michael ;
Skolnik, Fred (eds.).
Encyclopaedia Judaica . Vol. 7 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. pp. 57–58.
ISBN
978-0-02-866097-4 .
^ Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava (2016).
"Interview with Menachem Fisch (June 15, 2014)" . In Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava; Hughes, Aaron W. (eds.). Menachem Fisch: The Rationality of Religious Dispute . Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers. Vol. 18. Leiden: Brill. pp. 155–224.
ISBN
978-90-04-32356-8 .
^
Berenbaum, Michael ;
Skolnik, Fred , eds. (2007).
"Fisch, Harold" .
Encyclopaedia Judaica . Vol. 7 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. p. 51.
ISBN
978-0-02-866097-4 .
^ Schwartz, Dov, ed. (2006). Universiṭat Bar-Ilan: Me-raʻyon le-maʻaś [Bar-Ilan University: From Concept to Enterprise ]. Vol. 2. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press. p. 165.
ISBN
978-965-226-324-7 .
OCLC
71366810 .
^
"Lechter Institute for Literary Research" .
Bar-Ilan University . 27 March 2002. Retrieved 21 September 2020 .
^
Sarna, Nahum M. ;
Snaith, Norman Henry ; Greenspoon, Leonard J.; Harkins, Franklin T.;
Harkins, Angela Kim ; Grossfeld, Bernard (2007).
"Bible" . In
Berenbaum, Michael ;
Skolnik, Fred (eds.).
Encyclopaedia Judaica . Vol. 3 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. pp. 572–679.
ISBN
978-0-02-866097-4 .
^ Paul, William E. (2015).
English Language Bible Translators . Jefferson: McFarland & Company. pp. 81–82.
ISBN
978-1-4766-1023-8 .
^ Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim: The Koren Tanakh . Translated by Fisch, Harold. Jerusalem: Koren Publishers. 2015.
ISBN
978-965-301-721-4 .
OCLC
910088717 .
^
a
b Ram, Uri (2001). "Historiosophical foundations of the historical strife in Israel". Journal of Israeli History . 20 (2–3): 43–61.
doi :
10.1080/13531040108576158 .
ISSN
1353-1042 .
S2CID
159476037 .
^ Ram, Uri (2000).
"National, Ethnic or Civic? Contesting Paradigms of Memory, Identity and Culture in Israel" . In Gur-Ze'ev, Ilan (ed.). Conflicting Philosophies of Education in Israel/Palestine . Studies in Philosophy and Education. Vol. 19. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. p. 414.
ISBN
978-0-7923-6739-0 .
^ Lubling, Yoram (2007).
Twice-dead: Moshe Y. Lubling, the Ethics of Memory, and the Treblinka Revolt . New York:
Peter Lang . p. 71.
ISBN
978-0-8204-8815-8 .
^ Lustick, Ian S. (1988).
"The Worldview of Jewish Fundamentalism: The Breadth of Consensus" . For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel . New York:
Council on Foreign Relations Press . pp. 72–90.
ISBN
978-0-87609-036-7 .
^
Fisch, Menachem (2004). Introduction. Who Knows One?: An Essay in Autobiography . By Fisch, Harold. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press.
ISBN
978-965-226-275-2 .
OCLC
57344461 .
International National Academics Other