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Last update - 10:41 08/01/2008 Leader of IDF refusenik movement wins Haaretz First Book Prize By Shiri Lev-Ari, Haaretz Correspondent Tags: IDF, Yitzkovich, intifada  Yaniv Itzkovich, a leader of a movement of combat reservists who publicly pledged to refuse service in the territories during the Second Intifada, has received the inaugural Haaretz First Book Prize for his novel "Pulse." Itzkovich, 33, co-wrote the 2002 "Combatants' Letter," which was signed by 800 reservists who said they would refuse to serve in what they called "The War of the Settlements," but would continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces "in any mission that serves Israel's defense." Itzkovich was jailed for a month as a result. An officer in the elite IDF Maglan unit, he had served previously in both the territories and Lebanon. The prize, worth NIS 50,000, presented on Monday, is awarded for an author's first prose book, published in the preceding year. Each publishing house may submit two books for consideration. Advertisement Itzkovich has said that "Pulse" was inspired by his own army service, which in a May Haaretz interview, he termed "my formative experience." During that time, he said in the interview, "a lot of things that I saw and believed to be absolute truths began to crack." "Pulse" describes two days in the lives of Yonatan Berger and his aunt Yehudit. Yonatan is waiting to hear the fetal heartbeat in his wife's womb, but is certain the fetus is dead. He is busy moving their household from Tel Aviv to a moshav in the center of the country, and is also contending with his father's illness, unexpected guests and his depressed aunt Yehudit, whose son Udi has left Israel after his army service in the territories and gone to India with no intention of returning. The judges - books editor Dror Mishani and authors Dror Burstein and Ronit Matalon - selected "Pulse" (Hakibutz Hameuhad) from among 26 submissions by 18 publishing houses. Other leading candidates for the prize were Al Gevul Ya'arot Harozmarin by Nizan Weisman (Yedioth Books) and "Amram" by Asaf Shur (Babel). Attending the presentation ceremony at the newspaper were Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken, managing director Yossi Warshavski and Mishani. According to the judges, "this is a first novel that is impressively striking for being so attuned: almost perfectly attuned to language - the language of the narrator and the language of the characters, attuned to the literary act of novel writing itself, attuned to other literary texts, and engaged in a profound and interesting dialogue with them, such as Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time,' from which the epigraph to the book comes, and Yaakov Shabtai's 'Past Continuous.'" Itzkovich is currently writing a doctoral dissertation at Tel Aviv University on Ludwig Wittgenstein. "He influenced my life to an unreasonable degree," Itzkovich said of the philosopher in the May interview. "Through him I learned the power that language and words have, and how opinions and public norms and practices are constructed by language." At the Monday ceremony, Itzkovich said that "in such a jittery literary world, where a short while after a book is published, other new books come along and bump it off the shelf - this prize makes a different kind of statement." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Back on the horse N.Y. Times reports Syria is rebuilding the alleged nuclear site bombed by the IAF. 'Stunt gone awry' German Jews are enraged as a group likens a smoking ban to Nazi rule.   1.   Well done, that man 10:47  |  Rowan Berkeley 08/01/08   2.   Is is called the "Otto Weininger Award"? 23:43  |  Sam 08/01/08   3.   LOL Haaretz is known for anti IDF pro extremist views 23:49  |  Tom 08/01/08   4.   Take away his prize money 00:02  |  Adam 09/01/08   5.   bore and suprise;suprise-Haaretz is becoming 00:27  |  Zvi 09/01/08   6.   Rowan Berkley,Kim Philby was even more of a plucky chap 00:40  |  Absolute Sweden 09/01/08   7.   Pinching a copyrighted term "refusenik" 01:05  |  Jake 09/01/08   8.   He won`t participate in the "war of the settlements" 01:14  |  Jake 09/01/08   9.   How bad "Neturei Karta" didn`t write a book ! 01:25  |  Michael 09/01/08   10.   #5 tentative sweden 07:36  |  Rowan Berkeley 09/01/08   11.   haaretz hates israel like rosie hates americans 08:33  |  Trembling Palestine 09/01/08   12.   haaretz book prize and the winner? 10:38  |  Connie 09/01/08

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