Shez (Shaz, Hebrew: שז) (born Efrat Yerushalmi on 30 October 1959)[1] is an Israeli writer, poet and playwright. Recipient of the 1999 Ron Adler Prize [he] for Poetry and the 2007 Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works.[1] She is also a musician and a songwriter, described as "the first out lesbian performer in Israel".[2] More recently she has become a facilitator of writing workshops and "weight loss through writing" workshops.[3]

Early life

Shez was born in Kiryat Ono to Avraham and Ada Yerushalmi. She was subject to incest, reflected in her poems and books.[4] Trying to distance herself from the past, she changed her name ("Shez" is a Hebrew contraction of Shem Zmani (Hebrew: שם זמני), "temporary name") at the age of 25.[4]

Shez studied theatre at Thelma Yellin School [he].[4]

Creative career

Shez is described as a "provocative and extroverted lesbian" and her poetry is "outrageous, blunt and violent and leaves not even a narrow crack for sentimentality and compassion".[4]

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Hebrew. (January 2022) Click [show] 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 Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 316 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. 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 Wikipedia article at [[:he:שז]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|he|שז}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Albums

• 2002: Crazy Dance, music album based on the 1999 book
• 2020: להחזיר את הפיות (Return the Fairies) a music album in cooperation with Jonathan Bar Giora, released by Helicon Records

Books

• 1996: White Pearl Necklace, a play about childhood sexual abuse[5]
• 1999: The Crazy Dance (ריקוד המשוגעת) - songs
• 2001: Returning the Fairies to Eretz Israel: A Fake Autobiographical Novel (להחזיר את הפיות לארץ-ישראל)[6]
• 2005" Tamed (מאולפת) - stories
• 2010: Away From His Absence (הרחק מהיעדרו), Am Oved Publishing. Written in the first person, it is a novel about the incestous relationship between a father and a daughter. A screenplay by Keren Yedaya based on the book was chosen to take part in a Jerusalem Film Festival.[7] Eventually, it resulted in the 2014 Israeli-French drama film with English title That Lovely Girl, screened at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival to compete in the section Un Certain Regard.

Awards

• 2007 Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works.[1]
• 2004: Hero of Culture Award from the Israeli LGBT community[1][8]
• 1999 Ron Adler Prize for Poetry[1]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shez.