His father was a naval commander who had arrived in South Africa from Hungary before World War II to escape antisemitism.
[4] Abraham studied Law at the University of Cape Town, but has said that he was "hardly ever at lectures because there was something more important in those days" as a student union leader and activist.
He could not return to his home country until apartheid ended, and he was granted political asylum in the UK, where he found a job as a producer for the BBC television programme Panorama.
[3][7] He was founding producer of the Fugard Theatre in the District Six area of Cape Town (2010 to 2021), which served as a home for the Isango Portobello Company.
[8][9] Abraham's notable productions included a revival of the pioneering 1959 musical King Kong that launched the international careers of Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela among others; Abraham's new production opened in 2017 at the Fugard Theatre and was subsequently staged at the Nelson Mandela Theatre in Johannesburg.