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Yehonatan Geffen, (Heb: יהונתן גפן) also known as Yonatan Gefen, is an Israeli author, poet, songwriter, journalist, and playwright.
Biography
Yehonatan Geffen was born on February 22, 1947, in moshav Nahalal. He is the father of Aviv Geffen and Shira Geffen, as well as being Moshe Dayan's nephew. 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 leaving the army 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 the Ma'ariv newspaper, and he joined the enterntainment troupe "Lul" with Uri Zohar, Arik Einstein and Shalom Hanoch. The latter introduced Geffen to his future wife, Nurit Makober.
He was often criticized for his strong left-wing leanings, which bordered on provocation, and was even sent some death threats. Gefen 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. This was the first book to be 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 Gefen's success came from his works for children, like the song "HaYalda Hachi Yafa BaGan" ("The Prettiest Girl in Kindergarten") and the book "HaKeves HaShisha Asar" (the 16th sheep), 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.