Israel's First Nobel with Rabbi Jeffrey Saks

Following the success of our Koren in the Wild episode with Nachliel Selevan, we took the streets once again!

Rabbi Jeffrey Saks, editor-in-chief of the Toby Press' S.Y. Agnon Library, was kind enough to give us a private tour of Beit Agnon - The Agnon House in Jerusalem where he also serves as director.

S.Y. Agnon, born Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes, was recognized as a prodigy at a young age in his hometown of Buczacz in Galicia (modern-day Western Ukraine). He left home as a young man to resettle in Jaffa in 1908 where he lived a secular life as a writer in pre-state Israel. In search of some "real-life experience," he relocated to Germany in 1912 where, in 1924 he lost his home and library to fire and he took this as a sign that it was time to return to the Holy land with his family, this time settling in Jerusalem where he became a central figure in Israel's blossoming literary scene. Agnon's stories and poems explore themes of a people at a crossroads between the old world and the new. His writing earned him Israel's first Nobel Prize (and only prize for literature) in 1966.

We concluded our tour with Rabbi Saks by sitting down for a conversation in Agnon's study, surrounded by his collection of more than 9,000, to talk about Agnon's legacy as a writing, Zionist figure, and religious Jew. Rabbi Saks extolls the religious value of studying Agnon's works, and we made a fascinating discovery in amongst the many, many volumes on the shelves.

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Useful Links:

https://korenpub.com/collections/the-agnon-library

https://agnonhouse.org.il/english/

www.korenpub.com

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The Koren Podcast was written and hosted by Aryeh Grossman and Alex Drucker and is edited and produced by Alex Drucker.

The Koren Podcast is part of the Koren Podcast Network, a division of Koren Publishers Jerusalem.

We are grateful to Rabbi Jeffrey Saks and Agnon House for graciously hosting us for this week's episode.