1. Avi Shlaim was born on 31 October 1945 and is an Israeli and British historian of Iraqi Jewish descent.
16 Facts About Avi Shlaim
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Avi Shlaim is one of Israel's "New Historians", a group of Israeli scholars who put forward critical interpretations of the history of Zionism and Israel.
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Avi Shlaim left Israel for England at the age of 16 to study at a Jewish school.
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Avi Shlaim returned to Israel in 1964 to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, then moved back to England in 1966 to read history at Jesus College, Cambridge.
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Avi Shlaim was a lecturer and reader in politics in the University of Reading from 1970 to 1987.
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Avi Shlaim married the great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George, who was the British prime minister at the time of the Balfour Declaration.
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Avi Shlaim has lived in the United Kingdom since 1966, and holds dual British and Israeli nationality.
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Avi Shlaim taught international relations at Reading University, specialising in European issues.
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Avi Shlaim served as an outside examiner on the doctoral thesis of Ilan Pappe.
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Avi Shlaim is a regular contributor to The Guardian newspaper, and signed an open letter to that paper in January 2009 condemning Israel's role in the Gaza War.
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In Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew, Avi Shlaim unveils "undeniable proof of Zionist involvement in the terrorist attacks" which prompted a mass exodus of Jews from Iraq between 1950 and 1951.
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Avi Shlaim believed Mossad took these actions to quicken the transfer of 110,000 Jews in Iraq to the then-newly created state of Israel.
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The Israeli historians Joseph Heller and Yehoshua Porath have claimed that Avi Shlaim "misleads his readers with arguments that Israel had missed the opportunity for peace while the Arabs are strictly peace seekers".
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In 2006, Avi Shlaim was elected Fellow of the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.
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On 27 September 2017, Avi Shlaim was awarded the British Academy Medal "for lifetime achievement".
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Avi Shlaim was the winner of the 2024 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for his memoir "Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew ".