Taubman Symposium Talk: Between Catastrophe and Creativity: Shmuel Yosef Agnon’s Nobel Prize and the Jewish Response to Trauma

In December 1966, Austro-Hungarian born Israeli author Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1887–1970) received the Nobel Prize in literature—the only author writing in Hebrew to receive that distinguished honor. Rabbi Jeffrey Saks will trace how Agnon’s remarkable acceptance speech vividly expresses the intertwining of personal destiny, Jewish history, and the art of storytelling. Standing before the crowned heads of Europe, Agnon recounted his life, not merely as a biographical sketch but as a narrative shaped by the catastrophe of Jerusalem’s destruction and centuries of exile. Agnon portrayed his literary calling as divine compensation for the lost sacred songs of the Temple. He cast himself as a Levite tasked to write in place of singing—to render music in prose that consoles pain and channels longing. His works, suffused with layers of biblical, rabbinic, and folk textures, grow from that center: the artist as healer of ancient wounds. Saks explores how that theme animates Agnon’s writing and surveys the intertwined biographical stations leading to the platform at the Nobel Prize ceremony.

Rabbi Jeffrey Saks is a prominent Modern Orthodox educator, writer, and editor based in Jerusalem. He holds a BA, MA, and rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University. Rabbi Saks is best known as the founding director of The Academy for Torah Initiatives and Directions in Jewish Education and its online learning platform, WebYeshiva.org. Since January 2019, he has served as the Editor-in-Chief of Tradition, a leading journal of Orthodox Jewish thought, and currently serves as the Director of Research at the Agnon House in Jerusalem.

Zoom attendance link here

Cosponsored by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies and Department of Religious Studies