Funeral services were held on the Mt. of Olives today for Haim Hazaz, one of Israel’s leading writers, who died of a heart attack yesterday at the age of 74. Mr. Hazaz, who was born in the Ukrainian town of Siderovict, wrote stories about the effect of the Russian revolution on Jews during the early part of his career. He fled Russia after the Bolshevik revolution and settled in Palestine in 1931 after living in Paris and Berlin.
One of the founders of the Land of Israel Movement which came into being immediately after the Six-Day War, he was a former president of the Hebrew Writers Association. His first novel after settling in Palestine, “Rehayim Shvoorim” (Broken Millstone) earned him the 1942 Bialik Prize. He won the Bialik Prize again in 1971 for a collection of stories.
Mr. Hazaz wrote a great deal about Yemenite Jews in 1944 under the title “Hayoshevet Beganim.” Between 1947-52 he published a four volume epic on Yemenite Jewry, “Yaish,” which won him the Israel Prize in 1952. Mr. Hazaz was formerly married to the poet Yocheved Bat Miriam with whom he had a son, Nahum, who was killed in the May 1948 battle for Jerusalem.
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