David Shahar

David Shahar was born in 1926 in Jerusalem

Shahar was born in Jerusalem in 1926 to a family that had lived in the city for generations. His ancestors came in the 19th century from Hungary and the Russian Empire. When his father's language school went bankrupt, the family moved in with his grandmother in Mea Shearim.

He attended the Tachkemoni school and Beit HaKerem high school. He then studied psychology and Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University.

In the War of Independence he joined the IDF as a combat commander and later served as an education officer. He also worked as a teacher, editor and translator, and lectured at the Givat HaShlosha teachers college.

His first stories appeared in the early 1950s and were set in the Jerusalem of his childhood. His main work was the 8-volume series The Palace of Shattered Vessels. In 1973 he was elected chairman of the Hebrew Writers Association, and in France critics compared him to Marcel Proust.

In 1956 he married the historian Shulamith Shahar, and their son Meir Shahar became a scholar of Chinese culture. He died in a Paris hospital in 1997 and was buried on the Mount of Olives.