Nurit Peled-Elhanan

Nurit Peled-Elhanan was born in 1949 in Jerusalem

Nurit Peled-Elhanan was born in Jerusalem in 1949 and grew up in the Rehavia neighborhood. She has described her childhood home as leftist and Zionist. Her grandfather Avraham Katsnelson signed Israel's Declaration of Independence, and her father Matti Peled was an IDF major general, a scholar of Arabic literature and a member of the Knesset.

She is married to Rami Elhanan, a graphic designer and peace activist. Their daughter Smadar was killed in the 1997 suicide attack on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. The family's story appears in the 2020 novel Apeirogon by Colum McCann.

She taught language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the David Yellin College of Education. She translated works by Albert Memmi, Marguerite Duras and other writers into Hebrew. In 2012 her book Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education was published in the United Kingdom.

She shared the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 2001 and received the Paul K. Feyerabend Award in 2007. She was among the founders of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and supports the BDS movement. Her statements on Israel and the conflict have drawn criticism.

After a Facebook post she wrote on October 7, 2023, David Yellin College reprimanded her and her work there was stopped. She wrote that the post did not justify the killings, and said she ended her work there because of political persecution.