Avraham Oz (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: אברהם עוז; born May 23, 1944) is an Israeli Professor Emeritus of theatre,

and

comparative literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

at the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa (, ) is a public research university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963 as a branch of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation as an inde ...

. He has also translated several English literary works into Hebrew and is a well-known

peace activist A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world p ...

. He specializes in English theatre and drama,

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, political theatre, and theatre theory.Faculty member webpage at the

, accessed 26 Sept. 2007.

Early life and education

Avraham Oz was born 23 May 1944 in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

. He earned a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

in English literature and theatre arts (1967) and a M.A. in English literature (1970) from

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

, and a PhD in English literature (1980) from the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

Career

He has taught at the

, and the Beit Zvi School of Dramatic Art; Hakibbutzim Seminar College and

Sapir Academic College Sapir College (, ''HaMikhlela HaAkademit Sapir'') is a college in Israel, located in the northwestern Negev desert near Sderot Sderot (, , ; , sometimes Romanized as "Sederot") is a western Negev city and former development town in the South ...

, and as a visiting lecturer at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

and the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

. He also, for many years, served as an associate artistic director at the

Cameri Theatre The Cameri Theatre (, ''HaTeatron HaKameri''), established in 1944 in Tel Aviv, is one of the leading theatres in Israel, and is housed at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center. History The Cameri Theatre was founded with the purpose of promoting ...

, and dramaturg at the Haifa Municipal Theatre. In 2010, he was a founding member of the Academy of Performing Arts, Tel Aviv, which combines professional training with studies towards a BA degree, in cooperation with the

Open University of Israel The Open University of Israel (, ''Ha-Universita ha-Ptuha'') is a distance education, distance-education university in Israel. It is one of ten public universities in Israel recognized by the Council of Higher Education (CHE). Open University ...

. He serves at the Academy of Performing Arts, Tel Aviv as a professor of theatre and a stage director. From 1982 to 1986, he served as the Head of the Department of Theatre Arts,

. In 1984, he founded and edited ''Assaph: Theatre Studies'' published by

; in 1994, he founded the Department of Theatre at the

and served as its first chairman, and in 1995, he edited ''JTD: Journal of Theatre and Drama'', published by the

. From 2000 until its closure in 2004, he served as the director of the Haifa University Theatre. In 2007, he founded ''Mofa'', an electronic journal for theatre and the performing arts, for which he serves as an editor. Oz is also the general editor of the Hebrew edition (single volume series) of the works of

, and served as the president of the Israeli Association for Theatre Research (IATR). Oz directed several stage plays, among them, Shakespeare's ''

The Merchant of Venice ''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan taken out on behalf of his dear friend, Bassanio, and provided by a ...

'' and ''Henry V'',

Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A List of Nobel laureates in Literature, Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramat ...

's ''Ashes to Ashes'', '' Mountain Language'', and ''

Landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

''; C. P. Taylor's ''

Good In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil. The specific meaning and etymology of the term and its ...

'', and his own play ''Glorious Mountain''. He is a resident director at the Alfa Theatre in

. His play ''Glorious Mountain'' (2021) is a historical fantasy on the first immigration to Palestine at the end of the 19th century and the birth of

Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

. His play, ''Pipes'' (2023), depicts the assassination of Jacob Israël de Haan, the first political murder by Jews in modern Palestine. Among his many Hebrew translations of plays and operas, commissioned and performed by all major theatre companies in Israel and the New Israeli Opera, are: William Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice'', ''

As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral Shakespearean comedy, comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wil ...

'', ''

Coriolanus ''Coriolanus'' ( or ) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus. Shakespeare worked on it during the same ...

'', ''

Romeo and Juliet ''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's ...

'', ''

The Tempest ''The Tempest'' is a Shakespeare's plays, play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, th ...

'', ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

'', ''

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

'', ''Henry V'', and ''

A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a Comedy (drama), comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One s ...

'';

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

's ''

Life of Galileo ''Life of Galileo'' (), also known as ''Galileo'', is a Play (theatre), play by the 20th century Germany, German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and collaborator Margarete Steffin with incidental music by Hanns Eisler. The play was written in 1938 and re ...

'', ''The Wedding'', ''

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui ''The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui'' (), subtitled "A parable play", is a 1941 play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. It chronicles the rise of Arturo Ui, a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster, and his attempts to control the cauliflower ra ...

'', '' Three Penny Opera'', and ''The Rise and Fall of the City Mahogany'';

's ''

The Homecoming ''The Homecoming'' is a two-act play written in 1964 and published in 1965 by Harold Pinter. Its premières in London (1965) and New York (1967) were both directed by Sir Peter Hall. The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony Award ...

'', ''

Betrayal Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations. Of ...

'', ''Landscape'', ''

Silence Silence is the absence of ambient hearing, audible sound, the emission of sounds of such low sound intensity, intensity that they do not draw attention to themselves, or the state of having ceased to produce sounds; this latter sense can be exten ...

'', '' One for the Road'', ''Ashes to Ashes'', ''The New World Order'', ''Party Time'', and ''Mountain Language''; C. P. Taylor's ''Good''; Engelbert Humperdinck's ''

Hänsel und Gretel "Hansel and Gretel" (; ) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' (KHM 15). Hansel and Gretel are siblings who are abandoned in a forest and fall into the hands of a witch ...

''; '' Wild Honey'', an adaptation, by Michael Frayn, of an untitled work by

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

; and ''

Agamemnon In Greek mythology, Agamemnon (; ''Agamémnōn'') was a king of Mycenae who commanded the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans during the Trojan War. He was the son (or grandson) of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of C ...

'', by

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

, as adapted by

Steven Berkoff Steven Berkoff (born Leslie Steven Berks; 3 August 1937) is an English actor, author, playwright, theatre practitioner and theatre director. As a theatre maker he is recognised for staging work with a heightened performance style known as "Be ...

; and Peter Turrini's ''Figaro''.Austrian

Leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...

playwright Peter Turrini's adaptation ''Figaro'', composed in German and entitled ''Der tollste Tag'' (written 1972; first performed 1973), is a free adaptation of the Figaro motif from

Beaumarchais Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (; 24 January 1732 – 18 May 1799) was a French playwright and diplomat during the Age of Enlightenment. Best known for his three Figaro plays, at various times in his life he was also a watchmaker, invent ...

' trilogy '' Le Barbier de Seville'' and

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

's opera based on it (''

The Marriage of Figaro ''The Marriage of Figaro'' (, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienn ...

'' 'Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata''. Oz was also previously a theatre critic for two of the major daily papers in Israel (''Lamerhav'', and later ''

Ha'aretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew and English in the Berliner fo ...

'') 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.

Activism

Oz is an internationally known

in Israel. He is a founding member of the Committee for Solidarity with

Birzeit University Birzeit University () is a public university in the West Bank, Palestine, registered by the Palestinian Ministry of Social Affairs as a charitable organization. It is accredited by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Mini ...

and the Committee Against the War in Lebanon. He has organized, spoken, and written extensively on subjects relating to achieving peace in the Middle East and ending the

Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories The occupied Palestinian territories, also referred to as the Palestinian territories, consist of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been occupie ...

. In the spring of 2005, in a letter opposing a proposed UK academic boycott of Israeli universities (including his home institutions, the

and

), he stated: "Whenever asked, over the last few years I expressed my opinion that even though the repressive policies of sraelagainst the Palestinian population, especially in the territories occupied in 1967, is appalling, racist, sometimes horrifying in its cruelty, and often having crossed the boundaries of

war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...

, academic boycott was neither morally justified nor effective." In the official biography of the Late Nobel Prize laureate

by Michael Billington, the famous playwright is quoted as having written, in 2005, to Oz: "Let's keep fighting!".

Personal life

He is married to Israeli theatre designer and translator Tal Itzhaki, the director of the Academy of Performing Arts, Tel Aviv.

Bibliography

;Author *''Shetar hi-hidah'' (''The Riddle Bond: Studies in'' The Merchant of Venice) Tel Aviv: Hakibutz Hameuchad, 1990. (In Hebrew). *''The Yoke of Love: Prophetic Riddles in "The Merchant of Venice"'' (Newark, London and Toronto:

University of Delaware Press The University of Delaware Press (UDP) is a publishing house and a department of the University of Delaware in the United States, whose main campus is at Newark, Delaware, where the University Press is also based. Established in the early 1970s ...

, 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.)
ha-Yetsirah ha-Sheḳspirit
', library online catalogue entry, The

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

, accessed 30 Sept. 2007. *''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). * ith Susan Haedicke, Deirdre Heddon, and E.J. Westlake">E.J._Westlake.html" ;"title="ith Susan Haedicke, Deirdre Heddon, and E.J. Westlake">ith Susan Haedicke, Deirdre Heddon, and E.J. Westlake' Political Performances: Theory and Practice''. New York and Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009.

Notes

External links

"Avraham Oz"
– Biography in the ''Bio-Bibliographical Lexicon of Modern Hebrew Literature'' (in Hebrew).
The Committee Against the War in Lebanon
– Official website.
Committee for Solidarity with Bir Zeit University
– Official website.
Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace – UK
– Official website; hyperlinks ("Past Events": 1b: "The AUT boycott debate" April – May 2005).
"The Israeli Association for Theatre Research (IATR):
2006 annual meeting Thursday, 2 March 2006 Israel," article about the Israeli Association for Theatre Research (IATR), by Avraham Oz, in "News: Conferences & Symposiums," ''All About Jewish Theatre'', ''Jewish-theatre.com''.
"Professor Avraham Oz"
– Associate Professor, Department of Theatre,

, Faculty member webpage (in English); hyperlinked
Curriculum vitae
'. {{DEFAULTSORT:Oz, Avraham 1944 births Living people People from Tel Aviv Israeli theatre directors Israeli male dramatists and playwrights Academic staff of the University of Haifa Academic staff of Sapir Academic College