Hava Pinhas-Cohen | |
Birth Date: | 18 January 1955 |
Birth Place: | Jaffa, Israel |
Death Place: | Jerusalem, Israel |
Alma Mater: | Hebrew University of Jerusalem Shalom Hartman Institute |
Occupation: | Writer, poet |
Awards: | Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works (1995) ACUM award (1998) Kugel Prize (2000) Ramat Gan Prize for Literature (2013) Dr. Gardner Simon Prize for Hebrew Poetry (2022) |
Hava Pinhas-Cohen (Hebrew: חוה פנחס-כהן; 18 January 1955 – 29 October 2022) was an Israeli writer and poet. She was the first sabra of her family. Her work explored themes of Israel, Judaism, and eroticism. She served as the Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal Dimui and a translator, columnist, and book reviewer for Maariv.
Hava Pinhas-Cohen was born to a Jewish family of Bulgarian immigrants in 1955. Her family fled the European continent in the aftermath of World War II. They found a new life in Israel. Pinhas-Cohen was the first in her family to be born in the state of Israel.
According to Yaniv Hagbi, in a comment translated from Hebrew to English, "Her experiences, the state of Israel, Judaism, eroticism, and the Tanakh are remarkably woven together in the tapestry of her work." Pinchas-Cohen and her four daughters lived in Jerusalem.[1]
Pinhas-Cohen was a poet, editor and a lecturer of literature and art. In 1989 she founded and edited the Jewish literature, art and culture journal Dimui.[2] "Her poems have been translated and appear in various anthologies in English, French, Serbian-Croatian, Chinese, Greek, and Spanish." Some of her works are Mostly Color, Journey of the Doe, River and Forgetfulness, Orphea’s Poems The Gardener, the Bitch and the Slut, A school of one man, and My Brother, the thirst. In 2007 she founded and became the Artistic Director of Kisufim, a conference of Jewish writers. It has had three successful festivals, the years being 2007, 2009 and 2013.
Hava Pinhas-Cohen studied Hebrew literature and art history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She taught literature and written proficiency in high school for many years, and developed a special method of integrating literature, Bible, visual arts and cinema. From 1990, she was the Editor-in-Chief of Dimui, a journal of literature, criticism and Jewish culture. She was also a book reviewer, translator, and columnist for the daily newspaper Maariv.
Pinhas-Cohen died on 29 October 2022, at the age of 67.[3] [4]