Yaakov Shabtai (1934 – 1981) (Hebrew: יעקב שבתאי) was an Israeli novelist, playwright and translator, born in Tel Aviv.

His best known work is Zikhron Devarim (1977), published in English in 1985 as Past Continuous. Written as a single paragraph, it was the first novel ever to be written in truly vernacular Hebrew. In its English translation the novel received international acclaim as a unique work of modernism, prompting critic Gabriel Josipovici of The Independent to name it the greatest novel of the decade, comparing it to Proust's In Search of Lost Time.

Past Continuous is a brilliant tour de force, a Joycean panorama of the lives of three men, their families, their lovers, and their friends in the quintessentially modern city of Tel Aviv. It is as much a novel about Tel Aviv-its landscape, its idiosyncratic atmosphere, and its history-as it is about the human condition.