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This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Hebrew. (August 2015) Click for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Hebrew article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Misplaced Pages. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Hebrew Misplaced Pages article at ]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|he|יהונתן_גפן}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Misplaced Pages:Translation. This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Yehonatan Geffen" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Yehonatan Geffen
Born	(1947-02-22) February 22, 1947 (age 77) Nahalal, Mandatory Palestine
Died	Error: Need valid birth date (second date): year, month, day ץ
Nationality	Israeli
Occupation(s)	Author, poet, songwriter, journalist, and playwright
Spouse	Nurit
Children	Aviv Geffen, Shira Geffen, and Natasha Geffen
Relatives	nephew of Moshe Dayan

Yehonatan Geffen (Heb: יהונתן גפן; February 22, 1947 - April 19, 2023) also known as Yonatan Gefen, was an Israeli author, poet, songwriter, journalist, and playwright.

Biography

Geffen was born in moshav Nahalal. He is the father of Aviv Geffen, Shira Geffen and Natasha Geffen, as well as nephew of Moshe Dayan. He has two grandsons.

In 1965, he served as a paratrooper under Matan Vilnai, and became an officer.

In 1967, his mother overdosed on her medication and died. Geffen considers it to have been suicide.

After his discharge from the IDF in 1969 and moving to Tel Aviv, he took up poetry.

In 1972, while Geffen was studying in London, his sister Nurit committed suicide, causing him to return to Tel Aviv.

During this period he began writing a column for the weekend supplement of Ma'ariv, and he joined the entertainment troupe "Lul" with Uri Zohar, Arik Einstein, and Shalom Hanoch. The latter introduced Geffen to his future wife, Nurit Makober.

Geffen was often criticized for his strong left-wing leanings, which bordered on provocation, and even received death threats. He was one of a group of journalists (including Uri Dan, Yeshayahu Ben Porat, Eitan Haber, Hezi Carmel, Eli Landau, and Eli Tavor) who in 1973 published the book The Failure, the first book to document the Yom Kippur War. It criticized the performance of the government and military and also contained first-hand descriptions of battles, casualties, injuries, and the losses and failures of military hardware. The book aroused considerable public interest.

Much of Geffen's success came from his works for children, like the song "HaYalda Hachi Yafa BaGan" and the book "HaKeves HaShisha Asar" , but he has also written many popular songs, poems, plays, and stories for adults. He frequently collaborated with David Broza, rendering Spanish songs into Hebrew.

In February 2018, Geffen published a poem on his Instagram feed that ended with the following lines:

Reacting to this, defense minister Avigdor Lieberman demanded that Israel’s popular Army Radio ban Geffen’s work, and culture minister Miri Regev said Geffen was "crossing a red line by someone seeking to rewrite history." Geffen published an apology but didn't remove the poem from his Instagram feed. Gefen passed away April 19, 2023 at the age of 76.

References

1. Moore, Deborah Dash; Gertz, Nurith (2012). The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 10: 1973-2005. Yale University Press. p. 375. ISBN 9780300135534. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
2. את , אהד תמימי ... (Instagram)
3. Louis, Fishman (2018-02-07). "Once, Israeli pop culture icons publicly criticized the occupation. What silenced them?". haaretz.com. Retrieved 2018-02-18.
4. Boker, Ran. "המשורר והסופר יהונתן גפן הלך לעולמו בגיל 76". Yediot Achronot. Retrieved 19 April 2023.

• 1947 births
• Living people
• Dayan family
• Israeli male dramatists and playwrights
• Israeli Jews
• Israeli male poets
• Israeli songwriters
• Israeli children's writers
• Maariv (newspaper) people
• Recipients of Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works
• People from Nahalal
• Paratroopers