Amos Kenan, Israeli Writer and Artist, Dies at 82
Amos Kenan, the Israeli artist and writer who scandalized his countrymen with his iconoclasm, has died at 82.
He died Tuesday after struggling for years with Alzheimer’s disease, reports said.
Kenan, born in Tel Aviv, was a fighter in the pre-state underground Lehi movement and an early member of the Canaanite movement, which envisioned a Hebrew nationalism bereft of the Jewish religion.
His pointed anti-religious satire led to his firing from Ha’aretz in the early 1950s and accusations – never proven – that he was involved in an bomb attack on a religious Cabinet minister.
He lived in France from 1954-1962, where he formed friendships with some of that country’s leading litterati.
Upon his return to Israel, he resumed his career as a satirist, writing for periodicals and the stage. he was also a noted sculptor and painter.
In the late 1980s, he broke with his lifelong Lehi veterans when he said he saw in the Palestinian struggle echoes of their own youthful aspirations for independence.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
