• News
    • Business
    • Canada
    • Health
    • International
    • Israel
  • Perspectives
    • Advice
    • Big Ideas
    • CJN Podcast Network
    • Features
    • Opinions
  • Food
  • Culture
    • Arts & Entertainment
    • Books & Authors
    • Russian
    • Sports
    • Travel
  • Events
    • Contests
    • Montreal – About Town
    • Toronto – What’s New
  • Supplements
    • Spotlights
  • En Français
  • Podcasts
  • Subscribe
  • Member Centre
  • Log Out
Search
  • Subscribe
  • Member Centre (eCJN)
  • Log Out
  • Newsletter
  • FaceBook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
CJN - Canada’s largest Jewish newspaper
January 21, 2021 - 8 Shvat 5781
CJN - Canada’s largest Jewish newspaper
  • News
    • The race to be the leader of the Conservative Party

      Q & A with Ari Greenwald: Responding to a pandemic

      Israel declares complete coronavirus lockdown on eve of Passover

      Gantz says forming a unity government may take more time

      Students learn computer programming RHA FACEBOOK PHOTO

      Online classes up and running in Vancouver

      AllBusinessCanadaHealthInternationalIsrael
  • Perspectives
    • To our readers: Everything has its season. It is time

      Listen: The CJN Podcast Network, Signing Off

      Healthy Aging: Your next doctor appointment will likely be virtual

      Shinewald: Making this awful moment more tolerable

      Marmur: Israel’s Arab citizens lose out in political shift

      AllAdviceBig IdeasCJN Podcast NetworkFeaturesOpinions
  • Food
    • Delicious desserts for Passover

      Festive food for small seders

      Passover meals for the whole day

      Passover taco Tuesday

      Family Seder recipes

  • Culture
    • How philosophy and theology can be in dialogue together

      Socalled is trying to make the best of his downtime

      Veteran singer returns with ‘toxic’ single

      Stories explore relationships between family, friends

      Jewish movies you should stream while self-isolating

      AllArts & EntertainmentBooks & AuthorsRussianSportsTravel
  • Events
    • CJN VIP

      How’d you like to be a VIP? Giveaway

      Giveaway: The Song of Names advance screenings contest (CLOSED)

      CJN-Prize-new-Entry Ad 2019

      The CJN Prize 2019 (Closed)

      Come celebrate the launch of the CJN Podcast Network

      Jewish Music Week Contest (Closed)

      AllContestsMontreal – About TownToronto – What’s New
  • Supplements
    • Passover Greetings

      Focus-on-Ed-2020

      Focus on Education

      Celebrations-MS-20

      Celebrations

      Hanukkah Greetings

      Celebrations

      AllSpotlights
  • En Français
    • À la mémoire d’un ardent ambassadeur de la culture sépharade, Solly Levy Z.’L.’

      “La haine des Juifs n’a jamais eu de limite”

      Le dossier du Dr. Marcus Fraenkel: la réponse de la CIVS

      Israéliens et Palestiniens luttent ensemble contre le coronavirus

      La lutte contre le coronavirus au Centre médical Sheba de Ramat Gan

  • Podcasts
  • Subscribe
  • Member Centre
  • Log Out
Home Perspectives Opinions A timely prize for a powerful voice
  • Perspectives
  • Opinions

A timely prize for a powerful voice

By
thecjnadmin
-
March 12, 2008
1193
0

Sitting at a session of the international symposium to combat global anti-Semitism, organized by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I felt – rather than heard – a hum.

My cellphone was vibrating in my pocket. Ordinarily, I power down during meetings and conferences. But here, in Jerusalem, it seemed like an affront to the national ethos to turn off my cellphone for any reason at all.

As surreptitiously as possible, I glanced at the display: 4:03 p.m. It was my brother calling from Be’er Sheva. At the first opportunity, I stepped into a corridor to return the call.

His voice came through, excited. “Ida Fink won Pras Yisrael! They announced it on the news at four. I knew you’d want to know right away.”

Pras Yisrael – the Israel Prize – is an award conferred by the Israeli government to honour excellence and lifetime achievement in a rotating set of fields. The most prestigious award in the country, Pras Yisrael was established in 1953 and is awarded annually. The award is announced some time before Yom Ha’atzmaut, Independence Day, and conferred on that day in Jerusalem in the presence of the president, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and the Knesset. This year – Israel’s 60th – Ida Fink was selected to receive the Israel Prize for literature, in recognition of the excellence and significance of her work, joining the ranks of such luminaries as Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Aharon Appelfeld, and Leah Goldberg,

Readers of this column who are familiar with Fink’s subtle and luminous writing are nodding in approval. My students at York University are gripped by her work, particularly her stunning collection of short stories, A Scrap of Time, finding it powerful and profound.

I phoned her immediately to congratulate her. I had been sipping coffee with her at her Ramat Aviv apartment only a few days earlier. She had no inking then that she was up for this important honour. She learned of it a mere two hours before my brother heard it broadcast on the radio.

Fink was born in Zbaraz, Poland, in 1921 to an educated, professional family that was well-integrated into Polish culture. At the time the Nazis invaded Poland in September, 1939, Fink was 18 years old, preparing for a career as a pianist and studying literature and music.

Her studies were abruptly terminated, and the family was soon confined to the Zbaraz Ghetto. In 1942, she and her younger sister acquired false identity papers and left the ghetto. A fair-haired, blue-eyed young woman, Fink did not look identifiably Jewish. The two sisters survived the war by concealing their identities. Fink’s novel, The Journey, is a fictionalized account of the war years.

After the war, Fink married, and in 1957, she moved to Israel with her husband and daughter, setting up a home in Holon. She knew not a word of Hebrew. At the age of 36, she began to learn the aleph bet.

She worked for at Yad Vashem recording the testimonies of other Holocaust survivors. At home, she began to craft short stories about wartime experiences and their aftermath. Her stories capture the daily details of life and death under the threat of genocide, as well as the interplay of memory, bereavement and trauma. Her speciality is the very short story – slivers of remembrance, some as brief as three pages – that focus on moments of revelation and moments of radical change.

Early on, publishers rejected her stories, telling her that her writing was too subdued for her subject. Fink persisted, developing a voice that was subtle yet powerful and haunting.

When her first collection of stories was published in the 1980s, it earned high praise from reviewers, and she has gone on to receive many prestigious international awards, including the first Anne Frank Prize for Literature, the Moravia Prize, the Yad Vashem Prize, and now, Pras Yisrael. At 87, she is in frail health, so the prize is timely.

I have known Fink since the early 1990s and have the pleasure and honour of considering her a friend and mentor. If you have yet to read her stories, let this award prompt you to do so now.

 

thecjnadmin

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

A message to our readers with an update:

À la mémoire d’un ardent ambassadeur de la culture sépharade, Solly Levy Z.’L.’

“La haine des Juifs n’a jamais eu de limite”

Subscribe to the CJNSubscribe
RSS FeedView
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Subscribe / Member Centre (eCJN)
  • eCJN Archives
  • Supplements
  • Media Kit
  • Advertising Terms
  • Premiums

75th Anniversary - Liberation of Auschwitz

Ezer Mizion's 2019 Night Shuk

Jeff Golblum conducts O Canada at Fan Expo

  • Canada
  • Israel
  • International
  • Opinions
  • Food
  • Culture
  • En Français
  • CJN Podcast Network
The award-winning Canadian Jewish News (CJN) is Canada’s largest, weekly Jewish newspaper with an audited circulation of nearly 32,000 and read by more than 100,000 people each week.
© 2021 Canadian Jewish News
  • Comments Policy
  • Community Links
  • Contact Us
  • Media Kit
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe
  • Admin