Amos Levine (later Kenan) was born in south
Tel Aviv. His parents were secular socialists. His father was a
Gdud HaAvoda veteran and construction worker. At one point, the family lived in Argentina for several years when his father took work there. When the family returned, his father was injured in a work accident and subsequently became a clerk. He was a member of
Hashomer Hatzair youth movement. In 1946 he met the poet
Yonatan Ratosh and joined Ratosh's
Canaanite movement, which he remained identified with until the early 1950s. He was among the founders of the movement's magazine, "Alef", in which he published his first book in 1949. Kenan dropped out of high school to become a factory worker. During the
1948 Arab–Israeli War he fought in the 8th Brigade of the
Israel Defense Forces, under the command of
Yitzhak Sadeh, and was wounded.
The Independent's Daphna Baram writes that Kenan's account of the attack on the village and his role in it varied over the course of his life. Historian
Ilan Pappé writes that Kenan participated in the
Al-Dawayima massacre. From April 1950 until June 1952, Kenan wrote a satirical column in
Haaretz called "Uzi & Co.", succeeding
Benjamin Tammuz, who had started the column in 1948. "Uzi & Co.", regarded as the first anti-establishment column in Israel, took particular aim at the
religious establishment. In 1952, Kenan was arrested, along with his friend and former Lehi colleague Shaltiel Ben-Yair, in connection with an assassination attempt on
Israeli Transportation Minister,
David-Zvi Pinkas, in the wake of Pinkas's decision to save fuel by prohibiting private car owners from driving on
Shabbat. The two were arrested as they were leaving Pinkas' home, but said nothing under interrogation and were acquitted by the district court for lack of evidence. Kenan eventually told his wife,
Nurith Gertz, as well as close friends and colleagues, that he really was involved in the bombing. He began writing for
Tarzan Magazine under a pen name. In Paris Kenan participated in meetings between Arabs and Israelis (mostly Communists, although Kenan was not) arranged by the Egyptian Communist emigre
Henri Curiel. He also arranged a meeting between himself, Avnery, and
Jean-Paul Sartre in which Sartre (in Avnery's account) praised the Israeli left. He returned to Israel in 1962 and began writing a weekly column in
Yediot Aharonot that ran for forty years. In 1962, Kenan married
Nurith Gertz, a literary scholar. They had two daughters, the journalist Shlomzion Kenan and the poet and singer/songwriter
Rona Kenan. He was also the paper's food critic. He edited a newspaper named "Tzipor HaNefesh" ("The bird of the soul") with
Dahn Ben-Amotz, and contributed articles to
The New York Times and
The Nation. After the
Six-Day War he was sent by the
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to interview intellectuals such as
Jean-Paul Sartre,
Herbert Marcuse and
Noam Chomsky on the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. During the 1970s he directed several films, including
How Wonderful. He wrote songs for
Arik Lavi,
The High Windows,
HaGashash HaHiver and others. His play "The Lost Train" was presented in the
Cameri Theater. He wrote the screenplay to
Uri Zohar's film,
A Hole in the Moon and acted in
Moshé Mizrahi's film
Customer of the Off Season. His plays include
The Lion,
The Balloon, ''Maybe It's An Earthquake
, Something Not Normal
, Friends Talk About Jesus
and Still Believe in You''. In the 1970s, Kenan was a member of the
Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. In the late 1970s he joined
Ariel Sharon's short-lived
Shlomtzion Party, named after Kenan's daughter. In 1984 he published
The Road to Ein Harod, a dystopian novel which portrays a future Israel in the grip of a civil war following a military coup. It was translated into eight languages and was adapted into
a film in 1990. His book
To Your Country, To Your Homeland served as a basis for
Moti Kirschenbaum's documentary series
To the Water Wells, which portrayed a meeting between two patriots in disagreement — Kenan and
Naomi Shemer. He translated
The Good Soldier Švejk into Hebrew. He had struggled for years with
Alzheimer's disease. ==Awards and commemoration==