Short answer: Yes, in the deepest sense. David Grossman is an Israeli citizen, a former IDF intelligence soldier, and a 2018 Israel Prize laureate whose son Uri died fighting for the country in 2006. He is also one of Israel's sharpest left-wing critics, opposing the occupation and, since mid-2025, using the word "genocide" for the Gaza campaign. He has never boycotted or delegitimized Israel; he describes his criticism as coming from being "an integral part of" the country, not from opposing it. As of August 2026.
What David Grossman has actually said and done
1971-1973: Grossman served in Israeli military intelligence beginning in 1971 and was called up during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, according to Wikipedia.
August 10, 2006: Alongside fellow authors Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, Grossman held a press conference publicly urging Israel's government to agree to a ceasefire in the Second Lebanon War, per Wikipedia.
August 12, 2006: Two days later, Grossman's 20-year-old son Uri, a tank commander in the 401st Armored Brigade, was killed by an anti-tank missile in southern Lebanon on the final day of the war, as documented by Wikipedia and The Forward. Grossman later turned that loss into the acclaimed novel "Falling Out of Time."
February 12, 2018: Grossman was named winner of Israel's 2018 Israel Prize for Literature, the country's highest civilian honor, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. He had withdrawn his 2015 candidacy in protest of a Netanyahu-era judicial dispute, a decision that shows the same pattern he has followed for years: engaging fully with Israel's institutions while contesting specific government actions.
October 2023: Days after the October 7 Hamas attack, Grossman wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times calling the massacre "a nightmare beyond comparison" while pressing for hostage negotiations and warning about the war's long-term toll on Israeli society, according to The Times of Israel.
June 22, 2024: Grossman read a poem ending with the line "All hangs by a thread" to thousands of protesters at a Tel Aviv rally demanding new elections and a hostage deal, per The Times of Israel.
August 1, 2025: In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Grossman said that after years of avoiding the term, he could no longer avoid describing Israel's campaign in Gaza as "genocide," calling the accusation itself a source of anguish given Israel's founding after the Holocaust, according to The Forward and The Times of Israel.
2026: Grossman was announced as the recipient of Germany's Thomas Mann Prize, continuing an active international literary and public career, per Wikipedia.
The critic-from-within pattern
Grossman's public life traces one consistent shape: full personal investment in Israel paired with open disagreement with its governments. He served in the IDF, raised a son who served and died for the country, accepted its highest literary honor, and continues to write and speak in Hebrew, before Israeli audiences, about Israel's future. At the same time, he has spent decades criticizing the occupation, calling for elections, and, most recently, using the word "genocide" for Israel's conduct in Gaza. He has repeatedly said that his son's death proved a person can be "very critical of Israel and yet still be an integral part of it." That framing separates him from boycott or delegitimization movements, which argue from outside Israeli society and, in many cases, against its legitimacy altogether. There is no record of Grossman endorsing a boycott of Israel; his activism runs through rallies, op-eds, and Hebrew-language broadcasts rather than external pressure campaigns.
The bottom line
David Grossman supports Israel's existence and future as a Jewish state in the fullest personal sense: citizenship, military service, a son's sacrifice, and a career built on Israeli identity. He does not support the specific policies of Israel's government on the occupation or the Gaza war, and he says so publicly and often, in increasingly blunt terms. For readers looking for a simple "for or against" label, neither fits. He is best understood as a critical, deeply invested Israeli voice, not an adversary of the country and not a boycotter.
Wear your own answer
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
