Avraham Avi-hai

• Comment: I think he's notable. Buyt the article is written in a promotional manner, to support the causes he works for. This isshown by using quotations from him about the importance of his own work, and using terms like "close relationshjip". with respect to political leaders he supports.
  This needs not just some adjustment , but complete rewriting. DGG ( talk ) 02:08, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: CV hits are in quotes taken from [1]. I don't see an obvious foul here. ~Kvng (talk) 16:38, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: Check To see what the copyright violation problem is DGG ( talk ) 23:01, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

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Avraham Avi-Hai speaks at a Keren Hayesod event.

Dr. Avraham Avi-hai (Hebrew אברהם אביחי; born 1931) is a leader in Israel-Diaspora relations, a former member of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist executives for ten years. a high-ranking civil servant, journalist and author. He was the World Chairman of Keren haYesod –United Israel Appeal from 1978-1988. and was previously a senior staff member in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office under Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol

A former reporter for The Jerusalem Post, covering  economic, and then foreign affairs. Avi-Hai is the author of several books, including Ben-Gurion, State-Builder: Principles and Pragmatism, 1948-1963; Danger! Three Jewish Peoples; and A Tale of Two Avrahams. He is a founding Dean of the Hebrew University’s Rothberg School for Overseas Students and has been Visiting Professor at the University of Rochester in the US and at York University in Canada.

Biography

Syd Applebaum (later Avraham Avi-hai) was born in Toronto, Canada in 1931 to a Yiddish-speaking and traditional Zionist family. He was educated at Orde Model School and then at the noted Harbord Collegiate Institute, completing a 13-year senior matriculation at age 16.  His Hebrew education was at the then religious-Zionist Etz Chaim afternoon school and its continuation, Yeshivat Maharil. These studies were conducted in Yiddish.

As an adolescent, he led the renewal of Hashomer Hadati, the religious Zionist youth movement in Toronto, whose aim was to educate towards building the Jewish homeland by working and living an egalitarian life in a religious kibbutz. He spent a year on an agricultural training center, the Hadati farm in Guelph, Ontario, a further year in Toronto studying and leading the youth movement which had merged into B’nai Akiva.  During that year, Avi-hai married Hannah Adinah (Anne) Spiegel in late 1949. He was sent to Los Angeles to help lead the youth movement there.  At that time he worked with Yiddish-speaking landsmanshaften for the City of Hope, and later as Publicity Director for the Histadrut Campaign.

He moved to Israel in 1952, together with his wife. Initially he lived and worked as a farmer and construction laborer in a kibbutz in the south of Israel, he soon moved to Jerusalem and entered journalism, becoming a politics and economics reporter at The Jerusalem Post.

He later was appointed Deputy Director and Director of Public Relations in the Israel Bond Organization's Jerusalem office. He was loaned to the Jewish Agency during 1957, where he served as Agency spokesman, Deputy Director of the Information Department, and as a member of the Tenth Anniversary of Israel’s planning committee, in charge of overseas print publicity.  

Avi-hai was recruited into government service by future Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek and appointed Director of the Overseas Division in David Ben-Gurion’s  Prime Minister’s Office, and then as Secretary for Public Affairs to Prime Levi Minister Eshkol. The Overseas Division’s aims were to coordinate overseas information by the various ministries and national institutions, and to create close relationships with all Jewish religious streams and organizations, especially in North America. In an effort to have each religious stream establish its world center in Jerusalem, Avi-hai helped the Conservative movement locate the area for establishing Neve Schechter in Jerusalem which has developed into the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies. He also actively assisted the Reform Jewish leadership in opening the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. He also encouraged mayors who asked his advice to rent municipal facilities for the first Reform prayer services, “in accordance with the Israel Declaration of Independence regarding freedom of religion.”

Later in his career he helped open the World Zionist Organization to the Reform movement.  Eventually both the Conservative (Masoreti in Israel) and Reform (Progressive) world centers were established in Jerusalem, as well as the Israeli branch of Yeshiva University, with which he was also involved. In the Prime Minister's Office he also co-organize Diaspora-Israeli annual public dialogues with the American Jewish Congress. To encourage Israelis to understand Diaspora Jewish communal life he launched study visits by Israelis to the Jewish Federations of North America.

He was Levi Eshkol’s English speech-writer from 1955 until 1965. covering most of Eshkol’s period as Finance Minister and his first years as Prime Minister and with whom he developed a close relationship. Avi-hai was a member of the 10-person official delegation that accompanied Eshkol on the historic first state visit of an Israeli Prime Minister to the United States at the invitation of President Lyndon B. Johnson in June, 1954.  He then Hebraicized his name, which contains components of the first name of his parents.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Avi-hai helped lay the groundwork for Israel’s future high-tech economy by organizing the Prime Minister’s Jerusalem Economic Conferences of 1968-1971. From 1978-1988, he served as the World Chairman of Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal, the fundraising arm of the Zionist movement.

Education and academic work

On leave from the Prime Minister’s Office, Avi-Hai returned to North America to further the studies he interruptedwhen he came to Israe (1966-mid-1968). He received his Bachelor's degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, and his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at Columbia University in New York (Political Science). Previously, he had studied at the University of Toronto and at Yeshiva University, New York.

In the early 1970s, Avi-hai was founding Dean of the School for Overseas Students of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and its Vice-Provost.  He has been Visiting Professor of History at the University of Rochester in the US and at York University in Canada and has taught Political Studies at Hebrew and Bar Ilan Universities. Avi-Hai is a Member Emeritus of the Hebrew University's Board of Governors, on which he served actively for over two decades.  He was also founding Associate Chairman with Sam Rothberg (Chairman) of the Board of Overseers of the Rothberg International School of Hebrew University, as the Overseas School was later named.

In addition to English and Hebrew, he speaks Yiddish and French, has a working knowledge of a number of other European languages. (German, Italian, Spanish) and has studied Ancient Greek and Latin.

Journalism

During his early years in Israel, Avi-Hai worked as a reporter for The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s English-language daily newspaper, as a news editor and announcer on Kol Israel English broadcasts, as Acting Director of Kol Zion LaGolah, Israel’s overseas broadcasting service and as a correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In the latter capacity he covered the trial of Nazi mass murderer Adolf Eichmann.   Following his retirement from public life, Avi-Hai returned to journalism, writing a column for The Jerusalem Post and later for The Jerusalem Report. His opinion pieces have been published by Haaretz, Yediot Aharanot and Ma;ariv and he has authored academic articles for various journals.

Military and government service

Called up to the Israel Defence Forces in 1956, he completed basic training and then, as father of two infant children, was demobilized and did his reserve service in the Military Spokeman’s Office and later in the Education Corps.

In 1969,  Avi-Hai was recruited into government service by future Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek and served as Director of the Overseas Division in David Ben-Gurion’s Prime Minister’s Office, and then as Secretary for Public Affairs to Prime Levi Minister Eshkol until December 1964.

As Eshkol’s speech-writer when he was Minister of Finance, Avi-hai was heavily involved in Israel's development.  He was an organizer of the Prime Minister's Economic Conferences in 1968 and 1969, which led to the modernization and take-off of the Israeli economy.

He has described his decision to leave government service as partly motivated by his disappointment with the leaders who came after Ben Gurion and Eshkol. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, explained that when he “got out of the system - when I decided that I did not want to go into politics - I saw in the eyes of the leaders who came after Ben-Gurion and Eshkol, or they saw in my eyes, that I was measuring them by a different standard, and I don't think they were ever comfortable with me. I tried to hold myself up to that standard, and in so doing, I may have become somewhat of a curmudgeon in public life, in the Jewish Agency and in the Jewish world.”

“What concerns me about the state today is not where it is lacking, because that will be corrected, and the poisonous boils will be lanced, slowly but surely,” he explained. “What concerns me is the need to have leaders looking forward and anticipating what will be. That was Ben-Gurion's greatness.”

Zionist activism

During his tenure as head of the United Israel Appeal, Avi-Hai placed special emphasis on strengthening the Young Leadership and the Women’s Divisions, stressing that Keren Hayesod was a family, and should activate individual families as well.

He told the Jerusalem Post in 2008 that “as somebody who wanted, and wants, Diaspora Jewry to live and have a relationship with Israel, I tried very much to turn the United Israel Appeal into an educational movement. Rather than say, ‘Gevalt! Missiles are falling here, so give money,’ I was saying, ‘We are giving you an opportunity to share in state-building. We are partners. If you can't come to Israel, or don't want to, at least pay taxes.’ This was not philanthropy in the usual sense.”

Religious and political views

Avi-Hai, who grew up orthodox, has said that he came to Israel to be a “total Jew” and that “the kibbutz and egalitarianism were values” that he had received at home.

“They were essential parts of my Judaism. Therefore, coming to Israel was an important part of my Judaism. At the time I was more halachic [observant], and as I've studied over the years, I am trying more and more to internalize the human side of the commandments - the mitzvot between man and man - how we relate to other people in everything we do.

He has also said that he believes that just as the ultra-orthodox have been “deprived of a richness of general knowledge, the secular younger generation, in addition to a lack of general knowledge, has been deprived of Jewish knowledge. And they don't even know what secular means. Secular does not mean a lack of observance. It means knowing what your Jewishness is, and celebrating it the way you celebrate it.”

Avi-Hai is also a proponent of a more welcoming Judaism and has stated that “if we do not insist on open Judaism, of whatever variety - including humanistic, though I personally prefer traditional - we will be facing the need to battle extremism.”

Books

Over the years, Avi-Hai has published a number of books on Israel and Jewish topics. In 1974 he published Ben-Gurion, State-Builder: Principles and Pragmatism, 1948-1963. The book is based on his doctoral thesis and has been printed in English, Hebrew, French and Spanish.

In 1993, he published Danger! Three Jewish Peoples, a controversial analysis of the widening rift between Jews in Israel and the Diaspora.

In 2014, Avi-Hai’s first novel, titled A Tale of Two Avrahams, was published in English, several years after first appearing in Hebrew. A combination of modern thriller and historical fiction, the book the story of two men named Avraham, one fleeing the Catholc Inquisition in medieval Italy, the other from renegade Jewish fanatics in contemporary Israel.

Personal life

In 1949, Avi-Hai married Hannah Adina (Anne) Spiegel in Toronto Their three daughters were born in Jerusalem. Divorced in 1982, he married Henrietta Wagner (Bassan), a native of the United States who has two sons. He has three daughters, two stepsons, and including grandchildren, spouses and great-grandchildren, the four-generation family numbers over fifty as of 2019. He has lived in Jerusalem's Yemin Moshe neighborhood facing the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem since 1976.

Awards and recognition

Avi-hai was named Outstanding Student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1967.  

The Avi-hai Prize for Young Leadership was initiated by Keren Hayesod in 1989.

References

Category:Biography/Politics and government articles needing expert attention