A. B. Yoffe

A. B. Yoffe was born in 1924 in Bălți

Avraham Binyamin Yoffe was born in 1924 in Bălți, Bessarabia, then part of Romania. His father, the engineer Yerahmiel Yoffe, was a leader of the local Jewish community and a supporter of Revisionist Zionism. His mother, Haya-Rachel, came from a family of merchants.

He immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1940. He studied at the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa and later at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a member of the Haganah and served in the IDF.

He began writing in Romanian and turned to Hebrew in 1943, writing on literature, radio and film. He was on the staff of the weekly Bamahane from 1948 to 1953, and joined Al HaMishmar in 1950, where he edited its literary page until 1984. He also worked at Kol Israel radio from 1954 to 1965 and helped found the Tzavta club with Avraham Shlonsky.

His books dealt with Hebrew and French literature, and with the writers Avraham Shlonsky and Leah Goldberg, whom he knew personally. He also studied the role of Jewish writers in Romanian literature. He represented Israel in the international writers' organization from 1977 to 1982.

He received the Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Writers in 1996 and other prizes. He was married to Yehudit and had 2 children. He died of lung disease on June 21, 2008.