Asher Reich

Asher Reich was born in 1937 to an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem family. He grew up in an isolated neighborhood where radios were forbidden and the only education available was religious. At eighteen, Reich joined the army, an act unheard of in his immediate environment. He eventually studied philosophy and literature at the Hebrew University, and left tradition entirely behind. Reich began publishing in 1960. Best known as a poet, he also spent eight years as co-editor of Moznayim, the magazine of the Hebrew Writers Association. Reich participated in the International Writing Program at Iowa University and has received several awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize twice (1981; 2001), the Bernstein Prize (1988), the President’s Prize (2000), the Brenner Prize (2002), the ACUM Prize (2009), the Ramat Gan Prize (2010) and  the ACUM Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2015).