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Harold Fisch
Harold Fisch
Born	25 March 1923; Birmingham, United Kingdom
Died	8 November 2001 (aged 78); Jerusalem, Israel
Spouse	Frances Joyce Roston (m. 1947)
Children	Menachem Fisch; David Harel; Yossi Harel-Fisch
Relatives	Murray Roston (brother-in-law)
Awards	Israel Prize (2000)
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Sheffield; University of Oxford
Academic work
Institutions	University of Leeds (1947–1957); Bar-Ilan University (1957–1989)

Harold Fisch (25 March 1923, Birmingham – 8 November 2001, Jerusalem), also known as Aharon Harel-Fisch (Hebrew: אַהֲרֹן הַרְאֵל-פִישׁ), was a British-Israeli author, literary critic, translator, and diplomat.^[1] He was a Professor of English and Comparative literature at Bar-Ilan University, of which he served as Rector from 1968 to 1971.^[2] He was awarded the Israel Prize for Literature in 2000.^[3]

Biography

Harold (Aharon) Fisch was born in Birmingham to Rebecca (née Swift) and Rabbi Dr. Solomon Fisch. His mother was the sister of Rabbi Morris Swift, who was a dayan of the London Beth Din for nearly two decades.^[4] Fisch's father, born in Wolbrom, Poland, studied at Rabbi Solomon Breuer's yeshiva in Frankfurt before emigrating to England in 1920, where he received a doctorate from the University of Manchester.^[5]^[6] As a child, Fisch moved between Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Leeds, where his father took up posts as a congregational rabbi.^[7]

Fisch began his undergraduate degree in English literature at the University of Sheffield in 1940, at the age of 17. His studies were interrupted by his service in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve from 1942 to 1945, as an officer on HMS Meynell and HMS Kildary.^[3] He completed his B.A. in 1946, and was appointed Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds the following year, meanwhile serving as chairman of the Inter-University Jewish Federation.^[8] In 1948, he received his BLitt from the University of Oxford, with a thesis on Calvinist bishop Joseph Hall.^[9]

Academic career

In 1957, Fisch immigrated to Israel with his wife and four children, and accepted an associate professorship in English literature at the newly founded Bar-Ilan University.^[10] He was appointed full professor in 1964, and held the position of Rector from 1968 to 1971.^[11] Fisch founded the Kotler Institute for Judaism and Contemporary Thought in 1971, and the Lechter Institute for Literary Research in 1981, of which he served as chairman until his retirement from Bar-Ilan in 1987.^[12]^[13]

Fisch was responsible for the English translation of the Tanakh for the Koren Jerusalem Bible (1964), based on Michael Friedländer's Jewish Family Bible,^[14]^[15] which is still in publication and on its third edition.^[16]

Zionist activism

Fisch participated in the establishment of the Neo-Zionist Movement for Greater Israel after the Six-Day War.^[17]^[18] His 1972 work A Zionist Revolution included a defense of Gush Emunim, based on the ideas of Menachem Kasher and Abraham Isaac Kook.^[19]^[20] During the era of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Fisch was a member of the Israeli delegation to the 32nd General Assembly of the United Nations.^[17] He declined an offer from the Prime Minister to occupy the position of Ambassador of Israel to the Netherlands.^[3]

Awards and recognition

Fisch was awarded the Israel Prize for Literature in 2000. He died on 8 November 2001 of a tumor discovered two weeks earlier.^[21]

Published works

The Dual Image: A Study of the Figure of the Jew in English Literature. London: Lincolns-Prager. 1959. OCLC 560698380.
Jerusalem and Albion: The Hebraic Factor in Seventeenth-Century Literature. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1964. OCLC 314544149.
The Koren Jerusalem Bible. Jerusalem: Koren Publishers. 1967. OCLC 907788043.
Hamlet and the Word: The Covenant Pattern in Shakespeare. New York: Ungar. 1971. OCLC 574587836.
S.Y. Agnon. New York: Frederick Ungar. 1975. ISBN 9780804421973. OCLC 612045386.
The Zionist Revolution: A New Perspective. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 1978. OCLC 641497444.
A Remembered Future: A Study in Literary Mythology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1984. OCLC 1171238538.
Poetry with a Purpose: Biblical Poetics and Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1990. ISBN 9780253205643. OCLC 715575456.
New Stories for Old: Biblical Patterns in the Novel. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. 1998. ISBN 9780230502352.
Biblical Presence in Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake: A Comparative Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1999. ISBN 9780198184898. OCLC 781196210.
Be-seter ʻelyon: paradoḳs u-setirah bi-meḳorot ha-Yahadut [Divine Contradictions: Judaism and the Language of Paradox] (in Hebrew). Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press. 2001. OCLC 609321147.
Who Knows One?: An Essay in Autobiography. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press. 2004. ISBN 9789652262752. OCLC 57344461.

References

^ Davies, Lloyd (2016). ""Shadowy Presences": Harold Fisch's Criticism and a Jewish Reading of Romanticism". In Spector, Sheila A. (ed.). Romanticism/Judaica: A Convergence of Cultures. London: Routledge. pp. 169–182. ISBN 978-1-315-60701-6. OCLC 950005790.
^ "Author Page: Harold Fisch". Bar-Ilan University Press. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Recipients of the Israel Prize: Prof. A. Harel Fisch". Israel Prize (in Hebrew). 15 August 2012. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
^ "Morris Swift Dead at 76". Daily News Bulletin. Vol. 66, no. 179. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 21 September 1983.
^ Efron, Noah J. (2016). "Menachem Fisch: An Intellectual Portrait". In Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava; Hughes, Aaron W. (eds.). Menachem Fisch: The Rationality of Religious Dispute. Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers. Vol. 18. Leiden: Brill. pp. 1–32. ISBN 978-90-04-32356-8.
^ Fisch, Menachem (27 September 2017). "Ambivalence as a Jewish Value". Tablet. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
^ Rubinstein, William D.; Jolles, Michael A.; Rubinstein, Hillary L., eds. (2011). "Fisch, Solomon". The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 281–282. ISBN 978-0-230-30466-6. OCLC 793104984.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
^ Fisch, Harold (2018). "Bar-Ilan University—A Question of Identity". In Abramson, Glendad; Parfitt, Tudor (eds.). Jewish Education and Learning: Published in Honour of Dr. David Patterson on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-429-64749-9.
^ Gilboa, Shaked (2007). "Fish, Harel". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 7 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. pp. 57–58. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
^ Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava (2016). "Interview with Menachem Fisch (June 15, 2014)". In Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava; Hughes, Aaron W. (eds.). Menachem Fisch: The Rationality of Religious Dispute. Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers. Vol. 18. Leiden: Brill. pp. 155–224. ISBN 978-90-04-32356-8.
^ Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred, eds. (2007). "Fisch, Harold". Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 7 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
^ Schwartz, Dov, ed. (2006). Universiṭat Bar-Ilan: Me-raʻyon le-maʻaś [Bar-Ilan University: From Concept to Enterprise]. Vol. 2. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-965-226-324-7. OCLC 71366810.
^ "Lechter Institute for Literary Research". Bar-Ilan University. 27 March 2002. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
^ Sarna, Nahum M.; Snaith, Norman Henry; Greenspoon, Leonard J.; Harkins, Franklin T.; Harkins, Angela Kim; Grossfeld, Bernard (2007). "Bible". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 3 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. pp. 572–679. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
^ Paul, William E. (2015). English Language Bible Translators. Jefferson: McFarland & Company. pp. 81–82. ISBN 978-1-4766-1023-8.
^ Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim: The Koren Tanakh. Translated by Fisch, Harold. Jerusalem: Koren Publishers. 2015. ISBN 978-965-301-721-4. OCLC 910088717.
^ ^a ^b Ram, Uri (2001). "Historiosophical foundations of the historical strife in Israel". Journal of Israeli History. 20 (2–3): 43–61. doi:10.1080/13531040108576158. ISSN 1353-1042. S2CID 159476037.
^ Ram, Uri (2000). "National, Ethnic or Civic? Contesting Paradigms of Memory, Identity and Culture in Israel". In Gur-Ze'ev, Ilan (ed.). Conflicting Philosophies of Education in Israel/Palestine. Studies in Philosophy and Education. Vol. 19. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. p. 414. ISBN 978-0-7923-6739-0.
^ Lubling, Yoram (2007). Twice-dead: Moshe Y. Lubling, the Ethics of Memory, and the Treblinka Revolt. New York: Peter Lang. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-8204-8815-8.
^ Lustick, Ian S. (1988). "The Worldview of Jewish Fundamentalism: The Breadth of Consensus". For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. pp. 72–90. ISBN 978-0-87609-036-7.
^ Fisch, Menachem (2004). Introduction. Who Knows One?: An Essay in Autobiography. By Fisch, Harold. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press. ISBN 978-965-226-275-2. OCLC 57344461.