From Fania to Fania
Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger, the Daugher of Amos Oz, is Accompanied by Limmud FSU on the Way to Rovno, Where Her Grandfather Was Born
"Limmud FSU has accompanied Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger on the way to Rovno – now called Rivne – no longer Polish, and in the heartland of Ukrainian nationalism.
It was here that her great-gradnfather, Naphtali Hertz Mussman, the grandfather of her father, Amos Oz, was born in 1889, and it was here that he married Itta Schuster, who was born in 1891. Their daughter Fania, after whom Oz-Salzberger is named, was born in 1913 and her sisters Haya in 1911 and Sonia in 1916. Fania never knew her grandmother who suffered from depression and committed suicide in Israel in 1951, when Amos was 12 years old. The focal point of the visit is for Fania to unveil a plaque that has been attached to the side of the building her grandmother was born in. Fania said her father had no desire to visit his mother’s home town because he was afraid that reality will clash with the descriptions which he heard so vividly from his mother and aunts. Back in the golden days of the Jewish community in Rovno, all Jewish high-school students went to the Tarbut high-school, which followed a secular, Zionist-oriented curriculum. The building of the Tarbut high-school still stands but it is no longer Tarbut, nor are there any Jewish pupils – but it is still an educational center – rather run-down at the heels, cracked linoleum, rickety stairs and a pervading odor of mildew and sewage. We go over the history of the town, as well as the family story. "
About Amos Oz
A Tale of Love and Darkness
Amos Oz (born Amos Klausner; 4 May 1939 – 28 December 2018) was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. He was also a professor of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. From 1967 onwards, Oz was a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
He was the author of 40 books, including novels, short story collections, children's books, and essays, and his work has been published in 45 languages, more than that of any other Israeli writer. He was the recipient of many honours and awards, among them the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels, the Legion of Honour of France, the Israel Prize, the Goethe Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award in Literature, the Heinrich Heine Prize, and the Franz Kafka Prize.
Oz is regarded as one of "Israel's most prolific writers and respected intellectuals", as The New York Times worded it in an obituary.