Yoram Kaniuk (Hebrew: יורם קניוק; May 2, 1930 – June 8, 2013) was an Israeli writer, painter, journalist, and theater critic.
Yoram Kaniuk was born in Tel Aviv. His father, Moshe Kaniuk, born in Ternopil, Galicia (Eastern Europe), in Ukraine, was the first curator of Tel Aviv Museum of Art. His grandfather was a Hebrew teacher who wrote his own textbooks. Kaniuk's mother, born in Odessa, was also a teacher. Her family immigrated to Palestine in 1909, the year Tel Aviv was founded, and settled in Neve Tzedek.
At the age of 17, Kaniuk joined the Palmach. In 1948, during the War of Independence, he was shot in the legs by an Englishman in a kaffiyeh. He was treated at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
In 1958 while living in the USA, Kaniuk married Miranda Baker, a Christian woman.
At his death, he donated his body to science and eschewed a funeral (which in Israel are managed by ultra-Orthodox Jews).
In May 2011, Kaniuk petitioned the Israeli Interior Ministry to change his religion status from "Jewish" to "no religion." He cited the fact that his child and infant grandson, because they are descended from a mixed Jewish/Christian marriage, are legally of "no religion", and his desire not to belong to a "Jewish Iran" or "what is today called the religion of Israel." In October 2011, a district court judge approved his petition, meaning that Kaniuk was then considered a Jew by nationality, but not by religion. Hundreds of other Israelis intend to do the same; a new verb, lehitkaniuk (to Kaniuk oneself) was coined to refer to this process.
I lie half awake
Late at night
I reach out to touch you
To feel you by my side
And I reach
And I reach
But I never get to feel you
Will I ever get to feel you again?
Again...
Just one more time
One more moment
To take you in my arms
One more chance
One more kiss
Before I wake to find you gone
One more time
Before I have to face another day
And my heart breaks...again
It's only a dream
But it's also real
I don't want it to end
But I know it will
So I pray and I pray
Every night I'm on my knees
Begging for the chance to see you again
Again…