Gadi Algazi

Gadi Algazi was born in 1961 in Tel Aviv

Gadi Algazi was born in Jaffa in 1961 and grew up in the Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv and later in Ramat Gan. His mother, Miriam Algazi, was a Holocaust survivor born in Belgrade, and his father, Yosef Algazi, was a journalist at Haaretz. Both parents were left-wing activists.

In 1979 he was among the initiators of a group of high school students who declared they would refuse to serve in the territories. After joining the IDF, he refused such service 7 times and was tried in December 1980 and sentenced to a year in prison. After a public campaign, the chief of staff shortened his sentence, and he was released from regular service a month later.

He studied history and Arabic at Tel Aviv University and completed his doctorate at the University of Göttingen in Germany in 1992. He joined Tel Aviv University in 1993, became a full professor in 2010, and chaired its history department from 2008 to 2012. His research focuses on the social and cultural history of German-speaking lands in the late Middle Ages.

He edited the journal History and Memory from 2000 to 2012 and has headed the Minerva Institute for German History since October 2020. In 2000 he co-founded Ta'ayush, an Arab-Jewish partnership, and he has been active against house demolitions and the separation barrier. He is a member of the Hadash secretariat.