Yehuda Avner
| Yehuda Avner | |
|---|---|
| Born | Yehuda Haffner December 30, 1928 Manchester, England |
| Died | March 24, 2015 (aged 86) Jerusalem, Israel |
| Occupation | Israeli Prime Ministerial Advisor, Diplomat & Author |
| Notable works |
The Young Inheritors: A Portrait of Israel's Children, 1982 The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership, 2010 The Ambassador, 2015 |
| Spouse | Mimi Cailingold (m. 1953) |
| Children | 4 |
Yehuda Avner (Hebrew: יהודה אבנר; December 30, 1928 – March 24, 2015) was an Israeli prime ministerial advisor, diplomat, and author. He served as Speechwriter and Secretary to Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Levi Eshkol, and as Advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, and Shimon Peres. Avner served in diplomatic positions at the Israeli Consulate in New York, and the Israeli Embassy to the US in Washington, DC, and as Israel’s Ambassador to Britain, Ireland and Australia. In 2010, he turned his insider stories about Israeli politics and diplomacy into a bestselling book, The Prime Ministers, which subsequently became the basis for a two-part documentary movie. In 2015, his novel, The Ambassador, which Avner co-authored with thriller writer Matt Rees, was posthumously published.
Lawrence Haffner (later Yehuda Avner) was born in Manchester, England in 1928. He was active in the religious Zionist youth movement, Bnei Akiva, and was committed to helping build a Jewish state. In The Prime Ministers, he recalls the anti-Semitism he saw and experienced in Britain, including anti-Semitic rioting in the aftermath of the Sergeants affair. Upon high school graduation in 1947, he moved to Jerusalem, then part of British Mandatory Palestine.
Avner fought in the Siege of Jerusalem during Israel's 1948 War of Independence. In 1949, he was amongst the founders of Kibbutz Lavi, a religious kibbutz located in Israel's Galilee region. He temporarily moved back to Britain to work for the Bnei Akiva movement as National Director ("Mazkir"). In 1953, he married Mimi Cailingold, the sister of Esther Cailingold. He returned to Israel with his wife in 1954. The couple had four children.
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