Israel Eliraz

Israel Eliraz was born in 1936 in Jerusalem

Israel Eliraz was born Israel Rothstein on 23 March 1936 in the Knesset Yisrael neighborhood of Jerusalem. He grew up in a religious family, the son of Ya'akov and Shifra Rothstein.

He studied at the Alliance school in Jerusalem and at the Ma'ale religious high school. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Hebrew University in 1962 and a master's degree in comparative literature from Tel Aviv University. He later studied theater in Paris on a French government grant.

He worked as a teacher and principal at the Gymnasia Rehavia. He wrote plays from 1959, and from the 1970s he wrote librettos for operas by composer Josef Tal. His play Three Women in Yellow was canceled at Habima after a complaint by Chief Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman, and it was staged at the Khan Theater in 1972.

From 1980 he focused on poetry. That year he published a poetry book under the invented identity of George Matia Abraham, a Christian Arab poet, and posed as its translator. The true author was revealed in 1987.

He lived in Jerusalem and was married to Naomi Brunner, with whom he had 3 children. He died on 22 March 2016 and was buried in Kiryat Anavim.