This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous.Find sources: "Jonathan Garfinkel" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. You can help. The talk page may contain suggestions. (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Jonathan Garfinkel (born 1973[1] in Toronto) is a Jewish-Canadian playwright and author. He gained prominence especially for his play The Trials of John Demjanjuk: A Holocaust Cabaret.

Life

Garfinkel comes from a Zionist family and learned Hebrew and Yiddish. He attended the Bialik Hebrew Day School in Toronto, graduating in 1987.[2] As an adult he left Zionism. Before he dedicated himself to writing, he worked as a waiter, carpenter and English literature teacher.[1]

He published his poetry collection, Glass Psalms, in 2005. In 2007 he followed with his autobiographical work Ambivalence, in which he describes how he broke away from Zionism, triggered by a trip to Israel.[1] During his stay in the West Bank he visited several Palestinian refugee camps.[3] Jean Hannah Edelstein reviewed his book in New Statesman, saying: ”This is a book both painful and beautiful to read”.[4]

The Demjanjuk Trials premiered in Canada in 2004 and was staged in Germany at the Theater Heidelberg by Catja Baumann in 2010. Discussing his play, Christian Gampert states on the Deutschlandradio Kultur:" Jonathan Garfinkel […] takes the liberty to say: Such trials are absurd and only scratch the surface. However, to unsettle his audience Garfinkel uses theatrical devices which have never been used before in this topic in Germany: sympathy for the perpetrators, vicious songs, courtroom skits, Holocaust jokes."[1]

His play House of Many Tongues was also staged in Germany by Kristo Šagor in the Schauspielhaus Bochum.[5] Sven Westernströer wrote in Derwesten.de:[6] "The playwright is jewish-canadian. This is important to know in order to understand why in his play Garfinkel approaches a highly sensitive and emotionally charged topic like the Middle East conflict in his play with respect, but also with a certain distance and liberating irony. His characters, whether Israeli or Palestinian, are all likeable characters […]".[7]

He writes articles for the Jüdische Allgemeine, The Globe and Mail and Walrus, among other publications. He lives in Toronto, Budapest and Berlin. [8]

Garfinkel has received several awards, including the Toronto Arts Council Senior Writers scholarship in 2006 and the K.M. Hunter Award for best young playwright in 2008. In 2009 he received a scholarship from the Akademie Schloss Solitude.

Books

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Holocaust-Cabaret".
  2. ^ Renee Ghert Zand: School's Out. In: The Jerusalem Report vom 23. Mai 2011 (englisch)
  3. ^ Joshua Blum: Deeply personal look at Mideast. In: Winnipeg Free Press vom 28. Oktober 2008 (englisch)
  4. ^ Jean Hannah Edelstein: The divided self. In: New Stateman vom 31. März 2008 (englisch)
  5. ^ "Jonathan Garfinkel, Author at Jewcy".
  6. ^ "derwesten.de – Nachrichten für den Westen". DerWesten.de.
  7. ^ "Zwei unter einem Dach | WAZ.de". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  8. ^ http://www.playwrightscanada.com/index.php/jonathan-garfinkel.html [dead link]