Dan Ben-Amotz

Dan Ben-Amotz was born in 1924 in Rivne

He was born Moshe Tehilimzeigger in 1924 in Rivne, then in Poland. In 1938 his family sent him to Ben Shemen Youth Village, and his family was murdered in the Holocaust in 1941. His name was changed to Moshe Shimony, and later he chose the name Dan Ben-Amotz.

In 1943 he joined the British navy but deserted and joined the Palmach. In the Palyam he led cultural evenings and wrote songs and sketches. In 1947 he was sent to Europe for the Aliyah Bet organization.

In 1950 he went to the United States and had a small role in A Streetcar Named Desire. Back in Israel he starred in the radio show Three Men in a Boat and wrote for newspapers. With Haim Hefer he published A Bag of Fibs in 1956, and in 1972 he published a Hebrew slang dictionary with Netiva Ben Yehuda.

He also wrote novels, including To Remember, To Forget in 1968 and Does Not Give a Damn in 1973, and acted in films. Ill with liver cancer, he revealed his true personal history and held a farewell party in Jaffa in 1989. He died in 1989 and was buried at Sdot Yam.