FRANKEL, NAOMI

FRANKEL, NAOMI (1920– ), Israeli novelist. Born in Berlin into a wealthy, assimilated German-Jewish family, she joined Ha-Shomer ha-Ẓa'ir at an early age and went to Palestine in 1933. She studied Jewish history and Kabbalah, served in the Palmaḥ during Israel's War of Independence, and later became a member of kibbutz Bet Alfa. Her panoramic trilogy, Sha'ul ve-Yohannah ("Saul and Joanna," 1956–67), describes the fate of German Jewry up to Nazi times, as reflected in the life of three generations of an assimilated Jewish family, whose granddaughter finds her way to a Zionist youth movement, and revolts against family tradition. Along with books for children, Frankel is the author of the novels Dodi ve-Re'i (1976), Ẓemaḥ Bar ("Wild Flower," 1981), and Barkai (1998). In 2004 she published Predah, a novel about Jerusalem in the 1950s, focusing on the relationship between Malkiel, a survivor of the pogrom in Hebron, and Yoske, his commander in the Palmaḥ. An ardent supporter of a Greater Israel, she moved to *Kiryat Arba in 1982 and later to Hebron.

bibliography:

R. Gurfein, Mi-Karov u-me-Raḥok (1964), 122–5; J. Lichtenbaum, Bi-Teḥumah shel Sifrut (1962), 145–7. add. bibliography: Y. Orian, in: Yedioth Aharonoth (July 24, 1981); Y. Golan, in: Davar (July 24, 1981); E. Ben Ezer, "A Wild Flower for N. Frankel," in: Modern Hebrew Literature 8:11 (1982/83), 48–52; G. Shaked, Ha-Sipporet ha-Ivrit, 4 (1993); P. Shirav, in: Alei Si'aḥ, 34 (1994), 69–82; T. Wald, Sha'ul ve-Yohannah le-Naomi Frankel ve-Tafkido be-Iẓuv ha-Teguvah la-Traumah shel Milḥemet ha-Olam ha-Sheniyah ve-ha-Sho'ah (2001); Z. Kochavi-Rini, "Al Me'afyenim Leshoniyim ba-Roman Barkai le-Naomi Frankel," in: Balshanut Ivrit, 54 (2004), 23–36.

[Getzel Kressel]