• E. Kishon His Name Precedes Him| Eliav Lilty

    “I was brought up and destroyed at a hell called Nazism. I was educated and raised by the Holocaust. I am a paradox of the Holocaust. Till then i was an Hungarian man, I did not know the Hebrew Alphabet. The Holocaust made me a Jew.” (Ephraim Kishon)

    Director:  Eliav Lilty
    Editor: Roni Klimowski

    Ephraim Kishon was one of the great artists who formed the unique Israeli tongue through their writings. The Hungarian boy, who found his Judaism only when the Nazis rose to power, immigrated to a country he knew nothing about just to escape the Communist regime, eventually became the most accurate, eloquent voice of the young Jewish country. It might have been his implicit foreignness that allowed him to be an outside observer who pin points a fundamental tint of his Israeli surrounding, and to produce countless classics which placed him in the heart of the consensus.

    Throughout 50 years Kishon wrote plays, columns, books and screen writes, but despite his efforts he never succeeded in writing his biography.  Towards his 70th birthday, he invited his college Yaron London to assist him. The two stayed in Kishon’s house in Appenzell, Switzerland for six days, as London encourages Kishon to unravel his life story, and for the first time allow the readers to be acquainted with his true authentic voice.

    The series tracks Kishon’s life line station after station, as it was told by him, revealing a fascinating, complex, thrilling story of a man desperately seeking to be welcomed, seeking a home, and finds himself  time and time again being rejected and persecuted.