October 14, 1989
Israeli intellectual and former Knesset member Dov Sadan dies at the age of 87.
Sadan was born in 1902 in the Galicia region of Austria-Hungary, where he received a formal Jewish education. During World War I he joined and became a leader of HeHalutz, a Jewish youth movement that trained people to settle the Holy Land, and in 1925 he became the editor of Atid, the movement’s journal. He made aliyah that year and joined the editorial board of a Hebrew-language daily newspaper, Davar.
In 1933, Sadan became an editor at Am Oved, an Israeli publishing house.
He was a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and led the Yiddish studies department from 1952 until 1970. He served in the Knesset from 1965 to 1968 as an Alignment member of the Education and Culture Committee.
Sadan was famous for not only his newspaper and journal writings, but also his translations of Yiddish and Hebrew works of all genres. He also published books, essays and anthologies. He was awarded the Israel Prize in Jewish studies in 1968 and the Bialik Prize for literature in 1980.