Ephraim Kishon (Hebrew: אפרים קישון: August 23, 1924 – January 29, 2005) was a Hungarian-born Israeli author, dramatist, screenwriter, and Oscar-nominated film director.

[1][2][3] Ephraim Kishon was born on August 23, 1924, by the name of Ferenc Hoffmann into a middle-class Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary.

After the war when he returned to Budapest he discovered that his parents and sister had survived, but many other family members had been murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

In 1948 he completed his studies in metal sculpturing and art history and began publishing humorous articles under the name Franz Kishunt.

In 1949 he immigrated to the newly founded state of Israel, together with his first wife Eva (Chawa) Klamer, to escape the Communist regime.

In 1981, Kishon established a second home in the rural Swiss canton of Appenzell as he felt unwelcome in Israel due to his status as an immigrant.

Kishon initially lived in the "Sha'ar Ha'Aliyah" transit camp near Haifa, and soon afterwards moved to Kibbutz Kfar Hahoresh, in which he worked as a nurse while learning the Hebrew language during his free time with the help of his neighbor Joseph Bilitzer.

Mastering the Hebrew language with remarkable speed, in 1951 Kishon began writing a satirical column in the easy-Hebrew daily, Omer, after only two years in the country.

Later on Kishon began writing for the newspaper "Davar" (which was very influential at the time) in which he published a satire called "The Blaumilch Canal".

In 1952 Kishon began writing a regular satirical column called "Had Gadya" ("One Young Goat" in Aramaic, taken from the Passover Seder liturgy) in the daily Hebrew tabloid "Ma'ariv".

Lot (1960), Noah's Ark, Tourist Class (1962), The Seasick Whale (1965), and two books on the Six-Day War and its aftermath, So Sorry We Won (1967), and Woe to the Victors (1969).

He said: “It gives me great satisfaction to see the grandchildren of my executioners queuing up to buy my books.”[6] Until his death in 1979, Friedrich Torberg translated his work into German.