Literatureארז ביטון

Erez Biton

Erez Biton is an Israeli poet, born in Algeria to a Moroccan Jewish family, who received the Israel Prize for Hebrew Literature and Poetry in 2015.

born 1942Mizrahi poetry in IsraelThe poetry book Moroccan GiftThe 2015 Israel PrizeHeading the Biton Committee

Born: 4 June 1942, Morocco
Occupation: literary editor, writer, poet, social worker

Erez Biton was born in 1942 in Morocco

Biton was born in Oran, Algeria, to parents from Morocco, and was first named Yaish. His family immigrated to Israel in 1949 and lived in a transit camp in Ra'anana before he moved to Lod. In November 1951 a grenade he had found exploded, blinding him and costing him his left hand.

He then moved to a school for the blind in Jerusalem, where his name was changed to Erez. He earned a bachelor's degree in social work at the Hebrew University and a master's degree in rehabilitation psychology at Bar-Ilan University.

Biton worked as a social worker in Ashkelon and Or Yehuda and as a psychologist, treating families and people with disabilities. His first book, Moroccan Gift, appeared in 1976 and is linked to the rise of Mizrahi poetry in Israel. He wrote a weekly column in Maariv and founded the journal Apiryon in 1982.

He chaired the Hebrew Writers Association from 1991 to 1993 and was a member of the Labor Party central committee from 1993 to 2003. In 2016 Education Minister Naftali Bennett appointed him to head a committee on Mizrahi heritage in school curricula. In October 2022 he was elected to the Academy of the Hebrew Language.