Harold Fisch
Harold Fisch, also known as Aharon Harel-Fisch, was a British-Israeli author, literary critic, translator, and diplomat. He was a Professor of English and Comparative literature at Bar-Ilan University, of which he served as Rector from 1968 to 1971. He was awarded the Israel Prize for Literature in 2000.
Biography
Harold Fisch was born in Birmingham to Rebecca and Rabbi Dr. Solomon Fisch. His mother was the sister of Rabbi Morris Swift, who was a dayan of the London Beth Din for nearly two decades. Fisch's father, born in Wolbrom, Poland, studied at Rabbi Solomon Breuer's yeshiva in Frankfurt before emigrating to England in 1920, where he received a doctorate from the University of Manchester. As a child, Fisch moved between Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Leeds, where his father took up posts as a congregational rabbi.Fisch began his undergraduate degree in English literature at the University of Sheffield in 1940, at the age of 17. His studies were interrupted by his service in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve from 1942 to 1945, as an officer on HMS Meynell and HMS Kildary. He completed his B.A. in 1946, and was appointed Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds the following year, meanwhile serving as chairman of the Inter-University Jewish Federation. In 1948, he received his BLitt from the University of Oxford, with a thesis on Calvinist bishop Joseph Hall.
Academic career
In 1957, Fisch immigrated to Israel with his wife and four children, and accepted an associate professorship in English literature at the newly founded Bar-Ilan University. He was appointed full professor in 1964, and held the position of Rector from 1968 to 1971. Fisch founded the Kotler Institute for Judaism and Contemporary Thought in 1971, and the Lechter Institute for Literary Research in 1981, of which he served as chairman until his retirement from Bar-Ilan in 1987.Fisch was responsible for the English translation of the Tanakh for the Koren Jerusalem Bible, based on Michael Friedländer's Jewish Family Bible, which is still in publication and on its third edition.