Michal Govrin Explained

Michal Govrin
Language:Hebrew, French, English
Birth Date:24 November 1950
Occupation:Writer, poet, theater director
Nationality:Israeli

Michal Govrin (Hebrew: מיכל גוברין; November 24, 1950) is an Israeli author, poet and theater director.[1]

Biography

Michal Govrin was born and raised in Tel Aviv to a father who was part of the Third Aliyah and one of the founders of kibbutz Tel Yosef, and a mother who was a Holocaust survivor. Graduated in a municipal high school in Tel Aviv. Govrin has served in the IDF as a military reporter. At the Tel Aviv University she completed her undergraduate studies at the Comparative literature and Theater departments. In 1976 she completed her PhD from Paris University VIII in theater and religious studies. Her research 'Contemporary Sacred Theater, Theory and Practice', examines the theatrical aspects of Jewish mystical practices in Hasidic practices along with a study of the theater of Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook.

Govrin has published multiple fiction and poetry books, which have been awarded a number of prizes and were translated into several languages. In 2010 Govrin was chosen by the French Salon du Livre as one of the thirty authors that have left a mark on world literature. In 2013 she was awarded by the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres the title chevalier.[2] [3]

Govrin has directed plays in all the big theaters in Israel and was one of the founders of the Experimental Jewish Theater.

Govrin teaches at the Tel Aviv University, was the head of the Theater Department at Emmuna College, and has taught at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the School of Visual Theater. She was a Writer in Residence at University of Rutgers and gave an annual guest lecture at the Architecture School of Cooper Union in New York. Govrin lectures to open audiences around the world, in conferences, and in media. In 2012, she was appointed to professorship.

As part of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute,[4] Govrin founded in 2013 and was a director of a multidisciplinary research group 'Transmitted Memory and Fiction'.[5] The group was committed to working out the essence of the Holocaust memory in an age when living survivors are no longer the memory carriers. In 2015 a concluding exhibition 'What is the memory? Seventy years later'[6] was displayed at the Polonsky Academy at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, along with a symposium and the production of a movie. Parallel to this project Govrin has founded and was the head of a team of historians, thinkers, and community leaders that composed a ground-breaking ceremony – the "Hitkansut" (Gathering):[7] a "Haggadah" for the Holocaust memorial day. The gathering put forward the double attitude of "The responsibility to remember / Remember responsibly". In 2015 there were 10 experimental gatherings. Since 2016 the Gathering has been published and disseminated by the Hartman Institute and is practiced in a large number of schools, communities, working places or at homes across Israel.[8] [9]

Family

Govrin is married to the Jewish French Mathematician professor Haim Brezis, whom she met in the year 1978 in Jerusalem as Brezis visited the city, and actually was looking for Govrin, following an article she wrote about her journey to Poland. The couple has two daughters. Govrin lives in the Rehaviah neighborhood of Jerusalem. Her uncle Akiva Govrin served as one of Israel ministers, and member of the Knesset.

Books

Body of Prayer

The book is composed of three parts, written by David Shapiro, Jacques Derrida and Michal Govrin. The three are writing as secular-religious or religious-secular people about the nature and praxis of 'praying'. The book is concerned primarily with mapping the central issues surrounding the act of praying and offers, instead of 'relieving' those issues, to embrace these issues as a vital part of the praying experience itself. The book also offers a more existential notion of prayer, as something that is embedded in the act of living, deeply rooted in our 'bodies' and in the female act of 'childbirth'.

The Name

The Name is a novel whose plot traces a young woman named Amalia, daughter of a Holocaust survivor and named after his first wife who was murdered in the Holocaust.

The book was awarded the Koret Jewish Book Award and the for literature, awarded by the Municipality of Holon, and was translated to English and Russian. It received positive reviews at its publication.[10] [11]

List of literary and theater work

Fiction and Poetry

In Hebrew and in English translation

In Hebrew

Editing

Founder and editor of Devari-m Series (with Laurberbaum, M.)

Theatre directing

Directing, adaptation and translation at the Repertoire Theater

Directing and adaptation of Experimental Jewish Theater

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Govrin, Michal . worldcat.org . September 20, 2016.
  2. Web site: The Deborah Harris Agency .
  3. News: Sela . Mia . 5 Israeli authors will receive an award from the French Government . Haaretz.
  4. Web site: Van Leer Jerusalem Institute .
  5. Web site: Transmitted Memory and Fiction Research Group .
  6. Web site: What Is Memory? Seventy Years Later – Meetings, Discussions, Exhibition.
  7. Web site: Gathering for the Holocaust Remembrance Day.
  8. Web site: Govrin. Michal. C.V.. Michal Govrin's Official Website.
  9. Biography is translated from the existing Hebrew Wikipedia article at ; see its history for attribution.
  10. Web site: The Name. KIRKUS Reviews.
  11. Barbara. Hoffert. The Name – Book Review. Library Journal. 1998.

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