S. Y. Agnon, Israel’s first Nobel Prize Winner

Hebrew writer S. Y. Agnon became Israel’s first Nobel Prize laureate in 1966. In this special interview, Rabbi Jeffrey Saks, Director of Research at the Beit Agnon heritage center in Jerusalem, talks about this historic event, and his dramatic acceptance speech steeped in Jewish tradition. Plus, Agnon’s best-seller, Days of Awe, a compendium of High Holiday wisdom.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon at his desk. Credit: Yachin Hirsch. Dan Hadani Collection, National Library of Israel.

Agnon receiving a bouquet of flowers from a Swedish diplomat, who came to inform him of his winning the Nobel prize in literature. Credit: Moshe Pridan, Israeli Government Press Office, 1966.

Signpost next to Agnon’s house in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem asking drivers to be quiet in reverence to the Nobel Prize winner, 1967. Note his house was on Yosef Klausner Street. The two rival writers did not get along, the irony noted by Klausner’s nephew Amos Oz in his book A Tale of Love and Darkness. Credit: Fritz Cohen, GPO

S. Y. Agnon at the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm thanking King Gustaf VI of Sweden.

NOTES

• Beit Agnon center and museum in Jerusalem

• WebYeshiva, directed by Rabbi Jeffrey Saks

• Agnon Receives Nobel Prize - Israeli news, 1966

• Shmuel Agnon Banquet speech, full text - official Nobel Prize site

• The Etrog by S. Y. Agnon, translated by Rabbi Jeffrey Saks

• Excerpts from Days of Awe by S. Y. Agnon (podcast)