Tuvya Ruebner (טוביה ריבנר‎) was born in 1924 in Bratislava, Slovakia. He was 17 years old in 1941 when he fled Slovakia to Mandate Palestine and joined a kibbutz. His parents, sisters and grandparents were sent to Poland and were killed in the Holocaust.

Following the Israel War of Independence, he became a member of Kibbutz Merhavia. In Israel he settled in Kibbutz Merchavia. Tuvya Ruebner started as a labourer in the kibbutz and then a literature teacher in the local secondary school. With relatively little formal education, he ended up as Professor of Literature at Haifa University in Israel, and the editor of a leading Israeli publishing house for literature.

His Writings

Tuvya Reubner began writing in German – his first language, and later switched to Hebrew. He published his first book of poetry in 1957 and has since published 11 more collections. His poetry blends classical and modern Hebrew, creating a unique style and translated into 14 languages.

He has also translated Goethe, Shlegel and Kafka into Hebrew, and Agnon, T. Carmi and Dan Pagis into German. Ruebner has been awarded, in Israel: the Anne Frank Prize, the Jerusalem Prize, the Prime Minister`s Prize twice and the prestigious Israel Prize (2008); abroad he has received the D. Steinberg Prize (Zurich, 1981), the Christian Wagner Prize (Germany, 1994), the Jeannette Schocken Prize (Germany, 1999), the Paul Celan Translation Prize (1999), the Jan Smrek Prize and the Theodore Kramer Prize (2008).

In February 2008 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Poetry (the highest accolade the state of Israel can bestow). The jury awarding the prize wrote: ‘Tuvya Ruebner has been one of the foremost Hebrew poets for five decades now….Ruebner’s poetry is planted in two main landscapes, those of Europe and of Israel, and in this respect embodies ‘the pain of two homelands’ and the unresolved tension between them. This is restrained, polished and intellectual poetry. It is nourished by the ancient strata of Hebrew poetry and the best tradition of Central European poetry’.

Personal Life

His first wife, with whom he had one daughter, was killed in a car accident. His second wife is the pianist Galila Yizreeli-Ruebner with whom he has two sons.

He is a member of the German academies for languages and literature at Darmstadt and Meintz, and a winner of numerous prizes for literature in Israel and in Germany.