Dov Elbaum

Dov Elbaum is a writer, editor, journalist, television host and interviewer, lecturer on Jewish Philosophy and a scholar. Elbaum was born in 1970 to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family. Until the age of 17, Dov Elbaum grew up in Jerusalem, and was a prodigy who seemed destined for greatness in the world of Talmud study. However, during his army service, he left the ultra-Orthodox lifestyle and ever since, Elbaum has been a leading voice in Israeli culture, engaging passionately in language and literature, art and philosophy, dealing with core questions of Jewish thought and Israeli life as a journalist, television host and interviewer, academic researcher, novelist, lecturer and editor. Elbaum is the author of three successful novels, "Zman Elul" (1997; 2003), "My Life with the Ancestors" (2001) and "Into the Fullness of the Void" (2007;2013), along with three children's books and numerous essays. Elbaum was awarded the Israel President's Prize for Young Writers and is the 2013 recipient of the Liebhaber Prize for the Promotion of Religious Tolerance and Cultural Pluralism.

(Photograph by Dan Porges)