Avraham Oz

Avraham Oz (Hebrew: אברהם עוז; born May 23, 1944) is an Israeli Professor Emeritus of theatre, Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of Haifa. He has also translated several English literary works into Hebrew and is a well-known peace activist. He specializes in English theatre and drama, William Shakespeare, political theatre, and theatre theory.

Early life and education Avraham Oz was born 23 May 1944 in Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine, an only child to Itzhak Hoz, a bus driver, and Malka (Marussia) née Lifshitz, a retired beauty spa manager.

Oz was also previously a theatre critic for two of the major daily papers in Israel (Lamerhav, and later Ha'aretz) as well as on the Israeli National Radio. From 1968 to 1973, Oz served as a theatre editor for the literary magazine Akhshav, and had a weekly show on theatre on the Israeli National Radio from 1968 to 1971, and edited and presented several TV series on theatre and William Shakespeare. In the official biography of the Late Nobel Prize laureate Harold Pinter by Michael Billington, the famous playwright is quoted as having written, in 2005, to Oz: "Let's keep fighting!". On October 7, 2023, 5 members of his family were murdered at Kibbutz Be'eri by Hamas invaders from Gaza. On the evening of that day, Oz published a post on Facebook, saying: "A little question: why, to avoid killing, shouldn't one start a negotiation about exchanging kidnapped and prisoners?" During the entire Gaza war Oz issued almost daily calls for stopping the military attacks on Gaza. In a public letter read in July 2025, at the launch of a volume of his translations of anti-war poetry throughout the ages ("Beauty’s effect : Poems on Days of War and Other Days"), Oz wrote: "those who will gaze in astonishment at how the universe transformed and regressed into eras of savagery and disruption before donning the garments of enlightened culture, or those who will accept the unanchored foundational conventions of this age as given facts, as starting points for all conduct and law to come: In either case, they will confront, reflected back at them from the mirror of their own image of terror, Cain, father of murderers from time immemorial, bearing the mark engraved on his forehead, either for eternal shame or the prestige of vengeance, as guided by their inner moral voice, if indeed words like "morality" or "conscience" will still have any utility in the post-truth age. We shall all be seared with the branded mark. No one will be spared: those who committed murder, those who were silent, and even those who cried out but lacked the strength to stop the horror. In a world that has become Sodom, that turned its back on all restraint and anchor and failed to summon the power to rescue justice from its mad and lustful persecutors, there is not even one righteous person left."

Personal life He is married to Israeli theatre designer and translator Tal Itzhaki, the director of the Academy of Performing Arts, Tel Aviv and Alfa Theatre of Performing Arts. The Yoke of Love: Prophetic Riddles in "The Merchant of Venice" (Newark, London and Toronto: University of Delaware Press, 1995. (10). (13). ha-Te'atron ha-politi : hasva'ah, meha'ah, nevu'ah (Political Theatre). Tel Aviv: Dvir/Haifa University Press, 1999. (In Hebrew). ha-Yetsirah ha-Sheḳspirit (Shakespeare). Tel Aviv : Miśrad ha-biṭaḥon, 2006. (In Hebrew.) Sadot u-Mizvadot: Tesot al Hadrama ha-Ivrit ve-Hasiper ha-Zioni (Fields and Luggage: Theses on Hebrew Drama and the Zionist Narrative). Tel Aviv : Resling, 2014. (In Hebrew.) Koho Shel Yoffi: Shirim Al Yemey Milhama VeYamim Aherim (Beauty's effect : Poems on Days of War and Other Days), poems and poetic translations, Haifa : Pardes Publishing House, 2025. (In Hebrew.) Sonetot Shakespeare (Shakespdeare's Sonnets), translation, with introduction and notes, Haifa : Pardes Publishing House, 2025. (In Hebrew.) Editor Strands Afar Remote: Israeli Perspectives on Shakespeare. International Studies in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries ser. Wilmington, DE: U of Delaware P, 1998. (10). (13). Marlowe. New Casebooks ser. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. (10). (13). [with Susan Haedicke, Deirdre Heddon, and E.J. Westlake] Political Performances: Theory and Practice. New York and Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009.