Moshe Sahar (born 19 February 1928) is a lyricist, poet in Yiddish and Hebrew, an Israeli translator and painter.

Moshe Sahar was born to  Benjamin and Gittel (Gitla) Sachar. His father worked as a furun. He grew up until the age of 11 in Lodz, Poland, to a secular family with a younger brother of seven years. With the outbreak of World War II after Lodz was conquered by the Germans, Moshe hid with his mother and his uncle in Lodz. In 1941 the family reunited and fled to Brest-Litovsk, a town on the Polish side occupied by the Red Army. The family was later deported to Komi in the Russian Taiga.

After World War II, the family moved to the Caucasus and worked in a local kolkhoz. In 1946 the family returned to Poland and settled in Szczecin. Moshe’s father traveled one night to search for relatives in the town of Kielce and was caught in the Kielce pogrom that took place in July 1946, in which 42 Jews were murdered. The father was seriously injured.

In 1947, the family left Poland for Austria and settled in DP camps established by the American army. He joined the JDC in the city of Linz and worked as a journalist for the Yiddish weekly “Oifgang” in Linz (1947-1948).

Sachar immigrated to Israel alone in 1948, fought on the Jerusalem front during the War of Independence in the Moriah regiment. During the war he wrote poems in Yiddish, one of his poems was translated into Hebrew and published in the newspaper “Magen”.

He lived in Jerusalem until 1957, moving to Tel Aviv, the city where he lives today.

He studied literature for a year at the Hebrew University (1954). His teachers included Leah Goldberg, Shimon Halkin and Dov Sadan.

The first play he wrote was “The Pedagogical Poem” by AS Makarenko (music: by Yochanan Zarai, play and play: A. Horowitz). It was performed at the Ohel Theater in 1957. The song “The Jackal” was performed by the Dudaim (Benny Amdursky and Israel Gurion) in 1960. Marlene Dietrich sang it in Queens Theater as part of a performance in London in 1964 and released it in an album of her poems.  In the 1960s Dietrich visited Israel twice and sang the song. In 1970 Dori Ben-Ze’ev made a parody of the song. In 1987, the Dudaim published the book “Thirty Years of Dudaim” by Zmora Bitan and included the song.

In 1959, a musical comedy “Shani Connie Lemel” was performed at the Dura Theater, starring Yaakov Bodo and Jetta Luca, and was a great success; Trade arranged the play and wrote him original songs. In 1966, “Two Connie Lemel” appeared as a film starring Mike Burstein, which was successful and recorded as Burstein’s album.

For forty years he worked as a teacher, first in elementary school and later in institutions for children with cerebral palsy. In the 1970s he was sent to Canada for a year on behalf of the Jewish Agency and taught Yiddish and Hebrew in high school. Retired from teaching in 1997.

Moshe Sahar organized the first two Yiddish festivals in Israel in 1972 and 1973.

Mike Burstein produced “Avrahamle the smuggler,” an album of songs by Gevirtig in Hebrew, which Sahar translated from Yiddish. On the album: “Moshe Sahar, who translated his poems, still remembers his father’s workshop in Lodz and the workers who used to sing these songs while working.” Most of the poems that were simply piyutim, he tried to convey in his translation by using simple language It is possible, as if to say, if Gebirtig had written in Hebrew, how he would have said it. ” As a result, he was asked to translate all of Gebirtig’s poems into Hebrew, a task he spent twenty years studying as a book published by Magnes in 2000.

Sachar wrote the songs for Alfred Steinhardt’s musical film “When You Give – Take!” (1982) and also played in the film. “When you give – take!” Is the only film made in Israel in the Yiddish language, starring Yaakov Bodo.

Translated from English the songs of the musical “My Lady,” which came out as an album in Yiddish; In which Moshe Mishan sang, is not a claw and its lance is endander.

He wrote and translated songs mainly from Yiddish, but also from Russian, English and Hebrew to singers David Eshet, Israel Yitzhaki, Marie Serriano, Jenny Kessler, Dzigan and Shumacher, Aliza Azikri, Danny Granot, Aris San, Mike Burstein Ofra, Yaffa Yarkoni, Raphael Klatzkin, Jetta Luca, Moti Giladi, Rachel Atas, Aliza Gabai, Tova Porat among others.

Translated into Yiddish poems and stories of SY Agnon, Natan Zach, Haim Guri, Yitzhak Laor, Yehuda Open, Yair Horowitz and others, published in the Yiddish press.

Together with Esther Izivitzky, he translated “Shalom Nochamot” by Shalom Asch, which was the first play staged at the Be’er Sheva Theater in 1982 and was a success.

Sachar is also an illustrator and painter, illustrated book covers of various writers and poets. Tel Aviv, two exhibitions at the Central Chess Center, Ramat Aviv. He drew many paintings about the Holocaust, one of his paintings is regularly exhibited at Yad Vashem.

In April 2010 he received a certificate of appreciation from the Israel Defense Forces.

He was awarded the Chaim Rubenlicht Prize for Lifetime Achievement for his contribution to Yiddish literature.

His younger brother, Rafi Shachar, passed away in 2009; He was an actor at the Ohel Theater, then founded the Pink Theater and later the Lilach Theater. Produced the series “The Whistling Gypsy” for Israeli television under the direction of Dan Almagor and was the personal organizer of Dzigan and Shumacher, Dudu Topaz and the comedian Hanoch Rosen.

Moshe Sahar was married to Betty from 1952 until her death in 2008. Moshe has two children, his eldest daughter Dr. Shoshi Waxman, a lecturer and researcher in the field of linguistic landscape and his son Guy Sahar, who serves as a bank representative.