Ofra Offer Oren

Ofra Offer Oren (born 1951, Tel Aviv) – Israel writer, poet, translator, educator, editor and blogger. Authored ten books of prose and one of poetry. Her only translated book is The Truths We Never Told. Another book of interest for this Bibliography (in Hebrew: “Murder in the School for the Arts”) has not been translated. She taught English for matriculating students for decades at the well-known High School for the Arts in Givatayim. She translated over 40 works of English prose and poetry into Hebrew. She also translated one of her own books from Hebrew to English (see below).

The Truths We Never Told follows an Israeli family under surveillance by an unknown entity (later revealed to be related to the CIA) that is documenting their every move to expose their “web of deceit”. The family’s picture-perfect facade hides deep cracks, including a mother haunted by her past and multiple instances of infidelity. Characters attempt to reinvent themselves but are constantly pulled back by “long-lost memories” and historical traumas. The narrative explores the fragility of identity and how the terrible and the painful are often buried but never truly gone. 

The novel uses the Kastner Trial—one of the most controversial legal episodes in Israeli and Holocaust history—as a critical historical landmark to ground its fictional narrative.  Kastner was later accused of collaborating with the Nazis by keeping the truth of the gas chambers from other Hungarian Jews in exchange for the rescue of 1,684 specially selected individuals. The novel mirrors the “grey zones” and “dirty hands” of the Kastner case. Just as Kastner was accused of selling his soul to the devil to save some at the expense of others, the characters in the book make agonizing moral compromises that leave lasting scars on future generations. [Disclosure: Like many, but not all others, I regard Kastner as a heroic victim – he was later assassinated in Israel – and certainly no villain. Later research went a long way to vindicating him] [Google/AI]

Oren, Ofra Offer, (The Truths We Never Told [pb, independently published, translated by the author, 2023] 979-8853902923