Eliahu Eilat

Eliahu Elath
אליהו אילת
Elath in 1958 as Israeli Ambassador to the UK
2nd Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom
In office 1950–1959
President	Chaim Weizmann Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
Prime Minister	David Ben-Gurion Moshe Sharett
Preceded by	Mordechai Ali'ash
Succeeded by	Arthur Lurie
1st Israeli Ambassador to the United States
In office 1948–1950
President	Chaim Weizmann
Prime Minister	David Ben-Gurion
Succeeded by	Abba Eban
Personal details
Born	(1903-07-16)July 16, 1903 Snovsk, Russian Empire
Died	June 21, 1990(1990-06-21) (aged 86)
Alma mater	University of Kiev

Eliahu Elath (Hebrew: אליהו אילת), born Epstein (1903–1990) was an Israeli diplomat and Orientalist. In 1948 he became the first Israeli ambassador to the United States.

Life

Epstein informed Harry S. Truman of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he wrote had been proclaimed "within the frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947". Epstein requested US recognition of the new state.

He immigrated from Russia to Palestine in 1924, and spent a decade in Beirut as a student and journalist. From 1934 to 1945 he was an "informator" for the Jewish Agency, which eventually evolved into the government of Israel (as described by V. Jacobson in 1934 in “Report on my trip to Eretz Israel and Syria”, 12 may, 1933). That same year he came to the United States as the agency's representative in Washington, D.C., and from 1948 to 1950 he served as the first Israeli ambassador to the United States. Following that appointment he served as the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1950 to 1959, and later as the president of Hebrew University from 1962 to 1968.