Hanoch Levin - Personal Life and Legacy

Personal Life and Legacy

Levin was married twice, to Naava Koresh and Edna Koren. His partner in the last years of his life was Lilian Baretto. He had four children.

Levin was known for his refusal to give interviews. In one of the few interviews that he gave at the beginning of his career (to Michael Handelsalz from Israel Defense Forces Radio), he answered the question "Why do you write specifically for the theater?":

(Unauthorized translation) I just think, the theater, it's much more charming, much more involving when you see these things on the stage. It's just much more exciting, I don't know why... you see the world, that way, formed on the stage. I don't know whether the material takes on a different quality, or it's better or worse, but in any case for me it's more exciting, material that's produced on the stage.

Levin died of cancer on August 18, 1999. He continued to work even in the hospital, nearly to his last day, but didn't have time to finish the staging of his play The Crybabies. During his lifetime he composed 63 plays and directed 22 of them.

Levin's death brought new interest in his early stage works. The Israeli Theater Habimah performed several plays by Levin. An updated version of the political satire "You, Me and the Next War" was staged from 2004 through 2008 by the original crew with Bart Berman at the piano.

In 2000 the musician Dudi Levi released the disk Hanoch Levin Project, comprising eleven songs whose words Hanoch Levin composed.