Benjamin Tammuz was an Israeli writer and artist. He was born in Kharkov (now in the Ukraine) in 1919 and immigrated to Israel at the age of five with his parents. His father passed away while Tammuz was only eight, which impacted him and was later expressed in his works. He was writing, sculpting and painting from a young age and graduated art history studies in Paris. In his youth, he was a member of the Communist underground. Later he joined the Canaanite movement, where he was greatly influenced by his teacher and friend, artist Yitzhak Danziger. Tammuz was one of the most prominent artists in Israel in the 1940s, a period in which “a new Hebrew culture” was developed in Israel. In the 1950s he was the editor of the children’s newspaper Haaretz Shelanu, and in 1965 he became the editor of the literary and cultural supplement of Haaretz, where he also published critical articles on art. He later served as a cultural adviser to the Israeli embassy in London. Tammuz has written more than 20 books, such as Minotaur (1980), which was also adapted for cinema, as well as seven children’s books. He translated novels and plays, among others is All My Sons by Arthur Miller. He died in 1989 in Tel Aviv.
