Yaakov Besser
יעקב בסר
Yaakov Besser (1934-2006) was born in Poland. In 1940, he and his parents fled to Russia and then to the Ukraine to escape Nazi persecution. He came to Israel in 1950. In 1977, Besser founded the Israeli literary monthly Iton 77, and served as its editor until his death. In 1995, together with a group of writers, he founded the General Union of Writers in Israel and served as its first chairman. He also served as chairman of the Hebrew Writers Association.
Besser received the Prime Minister’s Prize (1980), the Talpir Prize (1982), the Efrat Prize for Poetry (1986), and a Special Award from the Board of Directors of ACUM for encouraging creativity in Israel (2005).
Photo by: Yonatan Turgovnik