21 Facts About Benjamin Harshav

Benjamin Harshav served as professor of literature at the University of Tel Aviv and as a professor of comparative literature, Hebrew language and literature, and Slavic languages and literature at Yale University.

Benjamin Harshav was the founding editor of the Duke University Press publication Poetics Today.

Benjamin Harshav received the EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture in 2005 and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Benjamin Harshav had a younger sister, Eta Hrushovski, born 1934, who died in 1968 during a trip in Turkey.

In May 1948, Benjamin Harshav immigrated to the nascent state of Israel through the illegal Aliyah Bet.

From 1948 to 1986, Benjamin Harshav lived in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

From 1971 to 1973, Benjamin Harshav went on sabbatical to Berkeley, California, where he was a guest professor of comparative literature and Slavic literature at UCB.

Benjamin Harshav took up the same position in 1977, and in the autumn of 1978.

In 1975, Benjamin Harshav founded the Israeli Institute for Poetics and Semiotics at the University of Tel Aviv, today known as the Porter Institute of Poetics and Semiotics.

Benjamin Harshav stood at the head of the institute until 1987.

Benjamin Harshav founded and edited the international publication of the Porter Institute, Poetics and Theory of Literature.

From 1986 to his death in 2015, Benjamin Harshav lived in New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale University is situated, and became a US citizen.

In 1987, Benjamin Harshav took early retirement from the University of Tel Aviv and joined Yale University as a professor of comparative literature, where he was appointed Blaustein Chair of Hebrew Language and Literature.

Benjamin Harshav became a professor of Slavic Languages at Yale in 1992.

Benjamin Harshav upheld both of these positions until his retirement in 2011.

From 1971 to 1998, Benjamin Harshav was a member of the board of directors of the International Association for Semiotic Studies.

In 1995, Benjamin Harshav was chosen as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1997, Benjamin Harshav received a silver medal from the University of Rome Tor Vergata along with his wife, Barbara Benjamin Harshav, for his studies and translations.

Benjamin Harshav won the EMET Prize in 2005 for his life's work, and the Akveyhu Prize for the study of Hebrew poetry in 2008.

Benjamin Harshav published an anthology of his Yiddish and Hebrew poems.

Benjamin Harshav translated his own work into Hebrew from Yiddish, English, and German.