Literatureדבורה גילולה

Dwora Gilula

Dwora Gilula is an Israeli scholar of classical drama, translator and editor, professor emerita at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a 2025 Israel Prize laureate.

born 1934Hebrew translations of classical dramaResearch on Greek and Roman theaterEditions of Nathan Alterman's workThe 2025 Israel Prize

Born: 9 May 1934, Lublin
Occupation: translator, literary theorist, editor
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Dwora Gilula was born in 1934 in Lublin

Dwora Gilula, born Cynamon, was born in Lublin, Poland, in 1934 to Simcha Cynamon and Leah (Lola) Glatstein. Her mother was the sister of the Yiddish poet Jacob Glatstein. In February 1946 she came to the Land of Israel with Youth Aliyah as an orphaned Holocaust survivor and grew up at Kibbutz Kfar Masaryk.

She served in the IDF from 1953 to 1955. At the Hebrew University she earned a BA in Hebrew literature and Bible in 1961, an MA in Classical Studies in 1966 and a PhD in 1977. Her doctorate, supervised by Baruch Lifshitz, was a scholarly edition of Terence's comedy The Eunuch.

She began teaching classics at the Hebrew University in 1963 and became a full professor in 1996. She taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1969 to 1972 and twice headed the theater studies department. In 1988 she cofounded the Israeli Society for the Advancement of Theater Research with Eli Rosik, and in 1999 she founded a theater department at David Yellin College.

She translated works from Latin, Greek, French, English and Polish into Hebrew, including plays by Plautus, Terence and Aristophanes. She edited theater journals such as Bamah and Bamot v'Masach, and from 2009 to 2017 published annotated editions of Nathan Alterman's The Seventh Column. She retired in 2002 and received the Israel Prize in 2025.

She was married to the linguist and Egyptologist Mordechai Gilula and has 3 children.