Yigal Mossinson (25 December 1917 – 1 May 1994) was an Israeli novelist, playwright, and inventor. He was the author of the Hasamba

Hasamba

Hasamba is a series of children's adventure novels, written by Yigal Mossinson...

 children's book series.

Among his many awards was the David's Violin Prize for "Casablan," the 1954 play upon which the Israeli musical comedy stage and screen hit, "Kazablan," was based."

Biography

Mossinson was born in 1917 in the moshav

Moshav

Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...

 Ein Ganim located near Petah Tikva

Petah Tikva

Petah Tikva known as Em HaMoshavot , is a city in the Center District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv.According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2009, the city's population stood at 209,600. The population density is approximately...

 and grew up in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

. Later on Mossinson studied in Beit Alfa

Beit Alfa

Beit Alfa is a kibbutz in the Northern District of Israel, near the Gilboa ridge.-History:The kibbutz was founded in 1922 by Hashomer Hatzair volunteers. The first members came from Poland. In 1940 some of the members, affiliated with Hashomer Hatzair, moved to Ramat Yohanan kibbutz, in exchange...

 and in the youth village

Youth village

A youth village is a boarding school model first developed in Mandate Palestine in the 1930s to care for groups of children and teenagers fleeing the Nazis...

 of Ben Shemen

Ben Shemen

Ben Shemen is a moshav in central Israel. Located around four kilometres east of Lod, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 627....

. Afterward he moved to the Kibbutz

Kibbutz

A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

 Na'an

Na'an

Na'an is a kibbutz near the city of Rehovot in Israel. Located within the Central District, it falls under the jurisdiction of Gezer Regional Council and borders the villages of Ganei Hadar, Ramot Meir and Sitria....

, where he lived from 1938 to 1950. In 1943 Mossinson joined the Palmach

Palmach

The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...

. During that period Mossinson was arrested by the British and imprisoned in Latrun

Latrun

Latrun is a strategic hilltop in the Ayalon Valley in Israel overlooking the road to Jerusalem. It is located 25 kilometers west of Jerusalem and 14 kilometers southeast of Ramla.-Etymology:...

. In 1944 Mossinson published his first story in the newspaper "Al HaMishmar". During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Mossinson served as a cultural officer in the Givati unit.

In 1950, following the publication of the novel "through a man" (דרך גבר) Mossinson was forced to leave the kibbutz and moved to Moshav Beit Shearim. From 1952 Mossinson served for a year and a half as a press spokesman for the Israeli police and afterward as the spokesman of the Habima Theatre.

In 1957 Mossinson founded the "Sadan" theatre in the Mughrabi Hall. The theater went bankrupt eventually and closed. In 1959 Mossinson moved to the United States where he pursued various businesses for a living. During this period he helped adapt the play "Casablan" for the screen, with a film version (filmed in Greece) released in 1964. In 1965 Mossinson returned to live in Israel, where he began his literary career.

During the last years of his life Mossinson began developing a number of inventions that gained particular success.

Family

Mossinson had two children from his first marriage, two children from his second marriage, and two children from his third marriage. One of his brothers was the Israeli author Moshe Mossinson and his niece, the daughter of Moshe Mossinson, is the Israeli author Dvora Omer

Dvora Omer

Dvora Omer is an Israeli author, born in 1932 in Kibbutz Ma'oz Haim in Mandatory Palestine.-Biography:Omer's parents divorced when she was a child, and when she was 11 years old, her mother was killed in a training accident, in the Hagana, a pre-state military organization. Her father, Moshe...

.

Work

Mossinsohn's first story was published in 1944, and in 1950 the first volume of his "Hasamba

Hasamba

Hasamba is a series of children's adventure novels, written by Yigal Mossinson...

" children's adventure stories was published. The series, which eventually included 45 stories, won him "national acclaim" as a children's author.

Books published in Hebrew

In addition to his more than 40 children's stories, his works for adults include:

• The Shepherds` Backpack (stories in 4 volumes), 1944 [Yalkut Haroim]
• Gray as a Sack (stories), Sifriat Poalim, 1946 [Aforim Ka-Sak]
• Tamar, Wife of Er, Tarshish, 1947 [Tamar Eshet Er]
• In the Negev Plains, Twersky, 1948 [Be-Arvot Ha-Negev]
• Who Said He's Black? (novel), Sifriat Poalim, 1948 [Mi Amar She-Hu Shahor]
• The Road to Jericho (novel), Sifriat Poalim, 1950 [Ha-Derech Le-Yeriho]
• With a Wise Man (play), Twersky, 1951
• If There Is Justice (play), Twersky, 1951 [Im Yesh Tzedek]
• A Man's Way (stories), Twersky, 1953 [Derech Gever]
• Stories, Twersky, 1954 [Sipurei Igal Mossinsohn]
• Throw Him to the Dogs (play), Gadish, 1958 [Zerok Oto La-Klavim]
• Breaking the Vessels (novel), Ohel, 1959 [Shovrim Et Ha-Kelim]
• Judas (novel), Am Oved, 1963 [Yehuda Ish Krayot]
• El Dorado (stories), Tirosh, 1963 [Eldorado]
• About Women and Men (stories), Tcherikover, 1970 [Al Nashim Ve-Al Gevarim]
• Cherchez la Femme (stories), Tcherikover, 1971
• Women Grow Horns, La`eesha, 1972 [Nasheem Matzmichot Karnaeem]
• Long Live the Little Difference (novel), Tcherikover, 1974 [Yehi Ha-Hevdel Hakatan]
• Tarantella (novel), Ramdor, 1979
• The Spies in Rachav's Bourdel (play), Shalgi, 1980 [Ha-Meraglim Ba-Burdel Shel Rahav Ha-Zona]
• A Selection of Hot Stories, Ramdor, 1981 [Mivhar Sipurim Lohatim]
• A Death Kiss in Bed (play), Or Am, 1991 [Mitat Neshikah Ba-Mita]

Plays

Among Mossinsohn's plays that were performed on stage are:

• Tamar, Wife of Er (Ohel, 1952)
• In the Negev Plains (Habima, 1948)
• A Day After the War (Hamatateh, 1950)
• Tower of Babel (Hamatateh, 1951)
• The Nameless Man, Fridman (1953)
• Cambyses (1955)
• El Dorado (Ohel, 1955)
• Shulamit (musical) (Do-Re-Me, 1956)
• Throw Him to the Dogs (Habima, 1958)
• The Narcotics Addict (Sadan)
• Casablan (Cameri, 1954—later, the basis for the musical, "Kazablan")
• Notes in the Hat (Zira, 1958)
• The Black Sabbath (Ohel, 1959)
• A Happy Evening in Park Avenue (Haifa Theater, 1965)
• Breaking the Vessels (Ohel, 1968)
• Shimshon (Samson) (Habima, 1969).

Awards

His many awards and recognitions include the Prime Minister's Prize for Literature, the Ussishkin Prize for "A Man's Way," the Cleveland Prize for "Cambyses," and the David's Violin Prize for "Casablan."

In 2005, he was voted the 160th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet

Ynet

Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...

to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

External links