Meir Uziel

Meir Uziel is an Israeli journalist, satirist, author, translator, performer and television and media figure. Over several decades he worked across newspapers, literature, radio, television and public service. His distinctive voice joined humor and wordplay with close observation of Israeli society, a strong connection to Jewish heritage and an enduring interest in culture and public life. His influence lies not only in the columns and books he wrote, but also in the platforms he created, the young writers he encouraged and his efforts to bring the story of Jewish resistance and heroism to a broad audience.

Jerusalem roots and an early career

Uziel was born on January 13, 1945, in Tripoli, Libya, while his father was serving as an officer from Mandatory Palestine in the British Army. When he was about a year and a half old, the family returned to the Land of Israel. His mother was born in Benghazi, in a family whose paternal side held British citizenship and whose father was president of the Jewish community in Tripoli; her maternal family had roots in Livorno, Italy.

Uziel comes from an established Israeli family with eight generations of roots in Jerusalem. His grandfather was the Rishon LeZion and the first Sephardi Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, after whom he was named. This family connection later became the foundation for one of Uziel’s major literary and historical works.

He grew up in the officers’ housing complex in Tel Aviv and moved with his family to Kibbutz Netzer Sireni at the age of fourteen. After completing his military service in the Israel Defense Forces, he worked in graphic design and opened a studio for applied art in Tel Aviv. At twenty-seven he became a graphic editor and illustrator at the newspaper Maariv. His move from visual design and editing into writing began a wide-ranging career in journalism, literature, performance, radio and television.

Journalism, satire and a platform for young voices

In 1974, Uziel began publishing the personal satirical column Shיפודים in Maariv. The column combined humor, linguistic play and political and social observation from a distinctly Israeli perspective. It also included “The Puddle Corner,” a series of stories about love and disappointment between frogs and princesses. Many of those stories were submitted by readers, turning the column into a participatory space in which the public became part of the creative process.

Shיפודים appeared in Maariv for decades, with brief interruptions. In 2005, Uziel continued the column in the same format in HaTzofe and Makor Rishon, and in 2012 it returned to Maariv. After another interruption, publication resumed on November 30, 2018. Over the years, the column became one of the most recognizable and enduring personal voices in the Hebrew press.

In 1978, Uziel became the founding editor of Keriat Benayim, a Monday supplement for young people published by Maariv in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The supplement used a youthful language and addressed subjects of interest to younger readers, while giving prominent Israeli writers and artists between the ages of twenty and thirty-five a platform. His role was therefore more than editorial: he helped create an institutional setting in which new voices could enter Israeli cultural life.

In 1997, Uziel founded the newspaper Makor Rishon and served as its first editor-in-chief. Alongside his work as a columnist and editor, he wrote articles, interviews and features and, at different periods, published personal opinion pieces.

Literature, family memory and artistic work

Uziel’s books fall into two broad groups: works of satire, including short humorous stories, and novels. In his novels he developed a style he described as “true-imaginary past,” combining literary invention with a sense of lived reality and memory. His novels include Facts about a Certain Passion, A Small Place with Debbie and Every Man Did What Was Right in His Own Eyes.

His connection to his family heritage received its fullest literary expression in The First to the Land of Zion, a biographical-literary novel about his grandfather, Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel. Published by Am Oved and Yad Ben-Zvi, the book connected a family story with a central chapter in the history of the Jews of the Land of Israel and the State of Israel. In 2000, it received the Zeev Prize for children’s and youth literature.

In 1999, Uziel began operating the Literary Performance Stage, an artistic framework that brought literary works to the stage under his direction, editing and guidance, in collaboration with leading Israeli artists. Performances took place at venues including the Cameri Theatre, Tzavta and Beit Avi Chai, as well as in halls throughout the country. The project reflected his belief that literature need not remain confined to the printed page: it can become a live, communal and accessible event.

Radio, television and the public memory of Jewish resistance

During the 1970s, Uziel hosted the television culture and arts program Eight-Thirty and appeared on the quiz and entertainment programs Nine in the Square and Play It. He also participated in radio satire programs, including One Joke Leads to Another and A Mosquito in the Head. These appearances extended his audience beyond newspaper readers and helped make satire and cultural discussion part of accessible popular media.

Uziel also conceived, created and wrote large-scale dramatic and historical television programs. They included The Underground Quiz, an international quiz on Jewish heroism during the Second World War, and the nine-part series We Were There with Them, about Jewish resistance to the Nazis and hosted by Yaron London.

This work was especially significant for Jewish and Israeli memory. Rather than presenting European Jews only as victims, the programs also highlighted resistance, courage and historical responsibility. By using television, quizzes and dramatic storytelling, Uziel brought these subjects to a broad public, including viewers who might not have encountered them through academic or literary channels.

Public service and Jewish communities abroad

From 1986 to 1989, Uziel was sent to Rome by the national institutions to serve as director of the Jewish Agency in Italy. In that role, he assisted the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. From 1994 to 1996, he returned to Italy as director of the Keren Hayesod office there. These positions extended his work beyond journalism and culture into practical public service, strengthening the relationship between Israel and Jewish communities abroad and supporting the fulfillment of Jewish immigration.

Uziel was part of the founding team of the March of the Living and coined its name. The name was intended as a counterpoint to the term “death march,” which refers to the forced evacuation of Jewish prisoners from extermination camps in Eastern Europe by the German army at the end of the Second World War, during which many were murdered. The choice of name expressed a deliberate movement from the memory of death and destruction toward continuity, life and Jewish identity. In this way, Uziel helped shape a framework that transformed historical memory into an expression of continuing Jewish existence.

He served on the committee of the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel and on the Israel Lottery Council for Culture and the Arts, participating in the organized literary and cultural life of Israel.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Meir Uziel merits inclusion in Moreshet because his career stands at the intersection of Hebrew journalism, Israeli humor, literature, mass media, Jewish memory and the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. The column Shיפודים made his personal voice part of the history of the Hebrew press; Keriat Benayim and Makor Rishon reflect his contribution as an editor, institution-builder and supporter of emerging writers; and his books carried humor, imagination and family memory into Israeli literature.

His contribution is equally visible in the way he brought Jewish resistance and heroism into television and public culture, and in his role in creating the March of the Living and strengthening ties between Israel and Jewish communities abroad. This combination of personal creativity, editorial leadership and public service gives his life a particular place in Jewish and Israeli cultural history. Documenting it through Moreshet.com preserves not merely the biography of a media figure, but a chapter in the way journalism, literature, entertainment and Jewish memory helped shape Israeli society.