"Israel: Peace and War," Topic of Amos Oz Talk at Williams College

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Nov. 6, 2003 – Amos Oz, one of Israel’s leading writers and a founder of the Peace Now movement, will deliver a Bronfman Committee Lecture, “Israel: Peace and War,” on Tuesday, Nov. 11, at 8 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall.

Oz wrote in The Observer that “Two Palestinian-Israeli wars have erupted in this region. One is the Palestinian nation’s war for its freedom from occupation and for its right to independent statehood … The second war is waged by fanatical Islam, from Iran to Gaza and from Lebanon to Ramallah, to destroy Israel and drive the Jews out of their land.” He argues that both wars are being run simultaneously, “pretending they are one,” and against simplistic visions and arguments.

“My Michael” (1968), one of Oz’s best-known novels, caused an immediate literary and political storm when it was released, provoking both criticism and admiration. It was made into a film in 1975. He is also the author of the novels “The Third Condition,” “Black Box,” and “To Know a Woman.” He is the author of fiction for children and adults, as well as an essayist. He also has written more than 400 articles and essays for Israeli and international magazines and newspapers.

According to his biography, Oz roots his writing in the “tempestuous history of his homeland. Through his writing, both fiction and nonfiction, runs a common thread: examining human nature and recognizing its frailty … . Oz consistently makes the plea for an end to ambivalence, for dialogue,” and for moving towards faith in the future.

He writes of Israel, its political tribulations and biblical landscape, and Newsweek has called his writing, “Eloquent, humane, even religious in the deepest sense, [Oz] emerges as a kind of Zionist Orwell: a complex man obsessed with simple decency and determined above all to tell the truth, regardless of whom it offends.”

Oz is a professor of Hebrew literature at the Ben-Gurion University of Negev in Beer-Sheva and has also taught at Oxford University, Princeton University, and Colorado College. He studied philosophy and literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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Published November 11, 2003