Felix Kandel

Felix Kandel was born in 1932 in Moscow

Kandel was born in Moscow in 1932 to a Jewish family. In 1941 he and his mother were evacuated to the Ural Mountains, where they stayed until 1944.

He studied at the Moscow Aeronautic Institute from 1950 and earned an engineering degree in 1955. As a student he wrote sketches and directed amateur shows with a classmate.

From 1955 to 1962 he designed missile engines for the Soviet military while writing under the pen name Felix Kamov. In 1963 he became a freelance writer of plays, film scripts and short stories. From 1967 he co-wrote scripts for the animated series Nu, pogodi! with Arkadiy Khait and Alexander Kurlandsky.

After the 1967 Six-Day War he grew interested in his Jewish roots and began studying Hebrew in 1970. In 1973 his family applied to emigrate to Israel and was refused. He edited the underground journal Tarbut, joined demonstrations and hunger strikes, and was jailed.

In 1977 the family emigrated to Israel, and Kandel worked at the Voice of Israel radio on Jewish history and culture. His novels appeared in Russian, and some in Hebrew, French and German. He lives in Jerusalem.