Scienceחיים באר

Haim Be'er

Haim Be'er is an Israeli novelist and poet, a longtime editor at Am Oved and a professor emeritus of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

born 1945The novel FeathersEditing at Am OvedMemoirs of a Bookworm column

Born: 9 February 1945, Jerusalem
Occupation: university teacher, writer, literary theorist, literary editor

Haim Be'er was born in 1945 in Jerusalem

Haim Be'er, born Haim Rachlevsky, was born in Jerusalem in 1945 to an observant Jewish family. His father Avraham came from Ovruch in Volhynia and moved to the Land of Israel as a young man. His mother Bracha came from an Old Yishuv family descended from Rabbi Israel of Shklov.

He studied at the Ma'aleh school and at the high school of the Mizrachi seminary in Jerusalem. He was also a member of the religious scouts.

He served in the military rabbinate on the staff of the journal Mahanayim, while working nights as a proofreader at Davar. His first poem appeared in Davar in 1964.

In 1966 he joined Am Oved, where he later served as a senior editor until 1999. His 1979 novel Feathers was translated and staged at the Cameri Theatre, and other novels followed. From 1981 to 1992 he wrote a weekly column in Davar called Memoirs of a Bookworm.

He became an associate professor at Ben-Gurion University in 2000 and a full professor in 2011, and headed its Yiddish studies chair. He retired in 2014 and that year became prose editor at the Keset project for debut literature.