Isser Harel
| Isser Harel | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Date of birth | 1912 |
| Place of birth | Vitebsk, Russian Empire |
| Year of aliyah | 1930 |
| Date of death | (aged 91) |
| Knessets | 7 |
| Faction represented in Knesset | |
| 1969–1974 | National List |
Isser Harel (Hebrew: איסר הראל, born Isser Halperin, 1912 – 18 February 2003) was spymaster of the intelligence and the security services of Israel and the Director of the Mossad (1952–1963). In his capacity as Mossad director he oversaw the capture and covert transportation to Israel of Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann.
Isser Harel was born in Vitebsk, Russia (now Belarus) to a large, wealthy family. The exact date of his birth was not passed on to him because the book of Gemara in which the date was recorded was lost in the migrations of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and World War I. The family had a vinegar factory in Vitebsk. It was a gift of his maternal grandfather, who had a concession to make vinegar in large parts of Tsarist Russia. Young Isser was five years old when the revolution broke out and Vitebsk passed several times between the Whites and the Reds. On one occasion he saw Leon Trotsky give a speech in the town.
The Harel family faced hardship when the Soviet regime confiscated their property. In 1922 they emigrated from the Soviet Union to Daugavpils in independent Latvia. On the way, Soviet soldiers stole their suitcases, which contained the rest of their possessions. In Daugavpils, Isser began his formal studies, completed primary school, and began secondary school. As he grew, a Jewish national consciousness grew within him and he joined a Zionist youth organization.
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