Israeli Poet and Novelist Rachel Gil-Balban Passes Away at 75
Poet, playwright, and novelist Rachel Gil-Balban has died at 75. She published eight literary works and two plays, leaving a lasting mark on Israeli prose and poetry.
The poet, playwright, and novelist Rachel Gil-Balban has passed away at the age of 75. Over the course of her literary career, Gil-Balban published eight prose and poetry books, alongside two plays that reached the stage. Her funeral is being held today in Even Yehuda, and the family will sit shiva on Rachel Street in Tel Aviv.
Born in Tel Aviv and a graduate of Ironi Tet High School, Gil-Balban began publishing her work relatively late in life, during the 1980s. In her youth, she studied civil engineering at the Technion and worked in the field before shifting career paths to study literature and editing.
Throughout her active years, she published three poetry collections, a volume of short stories, and four novels. Her most successful book, Thus I Wanted You (Kinneret Zmora), was released in 2014 and received widespread acclaim for portraying the painful story of a mother whose child suffers from bullying and abuse by classmates. Another prominent work, Landscape with a Tall Woman (2008, HaKibbutz HaMeuhad), drew upon her life experiences abroad.
Gil-Balban and her second husband, literary researcher Avraham Balban, lived in the United States for two decades before returning to Israel in 2014. Reflecting on her deep connection to the Hebrew language while living overseas, she once remarked that Hebrew remained one of the most constant anchors in her life. She is survived by two adult children from her first marriage and her partner.
