Farewell to Avraham Hefner, the Forgotten Genius of Israeli Cinema

During the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, or MarCheshvan, [Bitter Cheshvan] there are no Jewish holidays. Jvillage Network, therefore, will be printing articles relating to Jewish Arts.

He was the poet of normal life in a culture still beholden to its foundational myths

By Liel Leibovitz for Tablet Magazine

On my first morning in Tel Aviv University’s film school, a short gentleman with a shiny bald head and a neatly trimmed white beard walked into the classroom and told us that he was very sorry to announce that our professor, Avraham Hefner, had fallen ill, and that class was therefore canceled until further notice. Disappointed, we got up and collected our notebooks; we’d all heard much about the legendary Hefner, the director of some of the most influential films in Israeli cinema history, and were looking forward to meeting him. As we began filing out of the classroom, however, the bearded man eased into a chair and started laughing. We stopped at the doorway, baffled, then walked back in and took our seats. Hefner, still laughing, never bothered introducing himself formally. He’d already taught us an important lesson: If you have to make art—and not everybody does—remember not only to question conventions but, most important, to have fun. The rest of the semester wasn’t always as playful, but it was never less than profound. And when it was over, it wasn’t difficult to understand why so many of the directors and the screenwriters responsible for so many recent and excellent Israeli films and television shows considered themselves Hefner’s ardent students.

Hefner passed away last week at age 79. He’d been declining for some time. In 2005, while standing at a bus stop in Jerusalem, a speeding bus swerved into his path, forcing him to leap away. He hit his head against a pole and broke his glasses. He paid it to no mind at the time, but soon, he started forgetting words. A visit to the doctor revealed serious brain trauma, and his condition steadily deteriorated. His influence, however, seems to grow with each year: A recent survey selected his 1972 masterpiece But Where Is Daniel Wax? as the second-most-influential Israeli film ever made, second only to the cult hit Metzitzim.

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