Ezra Orion

Ezra Orion was born in 1934 in Beit Alfa

Ezra Orion was born in 1934 on Kibbutz Beit Alfa and grew up on Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan. He studied at Bezalel in Jerusalem before joining the army.

He served in the Golani Brigade as a platoon commander and deputy commander of its reconnaissance unit. In the reserves he led the Alexandroni Brigade reconnaissance unit in the Six-Day War and commanded a battalion in the Yom Kippur War. He was discharged as a lieutenant colonel.

From 1964 he studied at Saint Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. In 1967 he joined the founders of Midreshet Ben-Gurion, where he ran the field school for 7 years and helped found the school for environmental education at Sde Boker. In 1981 he founded and edited the journal Svivot.

From 1967 he moved sculpture out of galleries into open landscapes, creating monuments and stone works aligned with geological fault lines and mountain ridges, in Israel, Sinai and Nepal. In 1987 he developed intergalactic sculpture, sending laser beams into space with NASA and the Israel Space Agency. He also published several books of poetry.

Orion had children with Rivka Leblang and with Ruti Sadmi, and later lived with Dafna Horev. He died on October 18, 2015, and was buried at Midreshet Sde Boker.