Yitzhak Orpaz

Yitzhak Orpaz was born in 1921 in Zinkiv

Yitzhak Averbuch was born in Zinkiv, in Soviet Ukraine. His family fled persecution to Lipcani in Bessarabia, where his grandfather lived. Because of illness he studied with a private tutor instead of at school.

In 1938 he immigrated to the Land of Israel with Youth Aliyah. He studied at the Meir Shfeya youth village and joined a kibbutz group in Magdiel. In 1942 he learned that his parents and sister had died in a forced labor camp in Transnistria.

He served in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, then as an artillery officer in the IDF and later in the regular army. In 1960 he began studying philosophy and Hebrew literature at Tel Aviv University. During his studies he was a night editor at Al HaMishmar and wrote a weekly column there.

In 1949 he published his first story and changed his surname to Orpaz. His first book, Wild Grass, came out in 1959. In 1982 he took back the name Averbuch and used both names, exploring links between historical Jewish and Israeli identity.

He lived in Tel Aviv, was married 3 times and had 4 children. He donated his body to science. A memorial plaque was placed at his home on Malchei Yisrael Street.