FISH, HAREL

FISH, HAREL (Harold; 1923– ), literary scholar specializing in general literature and the mutual relationship between   Jewish and non-Jewish culture in literature. Fish was born in Birmingham, served as an officer in the British army, and fought in World War II. He graduated in 1946 from Sheffield University, and in 1948 he received his B. Litt. from Oxford University, doing research on Bishop Josef Hall. From 1947 to 1957 he was a lecturer at Leeds University. In 1957 he immigrated to Israel and joined the faculty of Bar-Illan University, becoming a professor there in 1964. In 1968 he was named the rector of the university, a position he held until 1971. In 1971 he founded the David and Batya Kotler's Institute for Judaism and Contemporary Thought. From 1981 to 1987 he was chairman of the Lechter Institute for Literary Research. He published hundreds of articles and eight books, including (in Hebrew) The Biblical Presence in Shakespeare, Milton and Blake and New-Old Stories: Biblical Patterns in the Novel from Fielding to Kafka. In 2000 he was awarded the Israel Prize for literature. (Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)