Ephraim Kishon

There was a time when an author from Israel wrote the Germans' favorite books. From Turn Around, Mrs. Lot! (1961), Noah's Ark Tourist Class (1963), Pardon, We Won! (1968), In the Matter of Cain and Abel (1976), and finally the famous family stories with "the best wife of all" and their three children Rafi, Renana, and Amir: Since the 1960s, Ephraim Kishon's books repeatedly topped the bestseller lists, dominated bookshelves, and were adapted for television. "Do you love Kishon?" a TV series asked in 1976. Yes, millions of German-speaking readers answered, making the Israeli author one of the most successful writers in the country. How did it happen that Ephraim Kishon, an Israeli who came from Budapest, had his greatest success with his humorous stories precisely among the German audience? How did the Holocaust survivor Kishon become the star author of the Federal Republic? For him, the Germans' enthusiasm for his satires was a satisfaction - and an irony of history. German readers had, as it were, laughed away their historical guilt with Kishon's stories. And: Kishon's humor had reconciled Germans and Jews. Really? This book goes beyond these popular interpretations to trace the author's international success and shows how he became a symbol of bestseller culture as "Kishon for Germans," while also being reduced to the image of a "humor manufacturer." Thus, the book brings together Kishon's many careers for the first time: For while this "German" Kishon was known for humor and lightheartedness, the "Israeli" Kishon provoked as a political analyst in the Israeli public. After the Six-Day War in 1967, the humorist Kishon finally did not remain apolitical even to his German audience - and his interventions concerning Israel repeatedly offended the West German Feuilleton. Thus, the biography of Kishon's success is not only an early example of a German approach to Israeli politics and literature that continues to be at the center of debates about antisemitism, Israel criticism, cultural bureaucracy, and BDS initiatives ("Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions"). Based on Kishon's autobiographical reports, the memories of contemporary witnesses and companions, as well as with the help of press articles and numerous unpublished archive sources, the book tells Kishon's success story in the interplay of literature, humor, and politics, following the author's literary traces from post-war communist Hungary, through the early years of the State of Israel, to the "old" Federal Republic and even the GDR. The narrative avoids the constraint of biographical chronology, but rather addresses in 15 scenic chapters the fundamental questions around which Kishon's life revolved: the relationship to his origins and his role as a foreigner, the relationships between humorous literature and politics, the role of success, public recognition, and private happiness.

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