KATZ (Benshalom), BENZION

KATZ (Benshalom), BENZION (1907–1968), Hebrew translator, literary critic, and educator. He was the brother of juliusz katz-suchy . Born in Sanok, Galicia, he studied at the University of Cracow, taught Hebrew language there (1929–39), and lectured at the Warsaw Institute of Jewish Studies (1937–39). In 1940 he immigrated to Palestine, and from 1941 to 1963 was director of the Jewish Agency's Youth and He-Ḥalutz Department. He also lectured on classical literature at the Tel Aviv University, where he was appointed rector in 1964. Katz's books include Mishkalav shel Ḥ.N. Bialik ("Metrics in Bialik's Poetry," 1942); Ha-Sifrut ha-Ivrit Bein Shetei Milḥamot Olam (1943; Hebrew Literature between the Two World Wars, 1953); Sheki'ot Yerushalayim ("Jerusalem Sunsets," poems, 1965); and Orḥot Yeẓirah ("Creative Paths," literary essays, 1966). He translated into Hebrew selections from the Persian epic Shahnama by Firdausi and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, as well as several classical Greek works. (Getzel Kressel) KATZ, SIR BERNARD KATZ, SIR BERNARD (1911–2003), British physiologist and Nobel Prize laureate. Katz was born in Leipzig, Germany. He studied medicine at the University of Leipzig, 1929–34; he received the Siegfried Garten Prize for physiological research in 1933 and obtained his M.D. in 1934. He left Germany in 1935   and finished his education in London, where he settled. He received a Ph.D. from London University in 1938 and in 1942, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science. In 1939 Katz joined J.C. Eccles' laboratory at Sydney Hospital, Australia, as a Carnegie Research Fellow. He collaborated with J.C. Eccles and S.W. Kuffler in neuromuscular research. In 1942, after naturalization in 1941, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force, and served as a radar officer in the Southwest Pacific until the end of the war. In 1946, he returned from Australia to University College, London. In 1952 he became professor and head of the biophysics department at University College, a position he held until his death. He received many awards and was made a fellow of the Royal Society of which, in 1965, he was elected vice president, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1969. He was knighted in 1969. He was a member of the Agricultural Research Council from 1967 and the Biological Secretary of the Royal Society from 1968. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine. Katz demonstrated the relationship between neural transmission and acetylcholine release in quantitative terms, and clarified the action of calcium in the propagation of the nerve impulse. His main research was in the field of the nature of both the nerve impulse and nerve-muscle connections. He wrote Electric Excitation of Nerve (1939) and Nerve, Muscle, and Synapse (1966). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lex pris Nobel/Nobel Lectures. (George H. Fried / Ruth Rossing (2nd ed.)