Yehuda Avner was an Israeli prime ministerial advisor, diplomat, and author.
17 Facts About Yehuda Avner
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Yehuda Avner 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.
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In 2015, his novel, The Ambassador, which Yehuda Avner co-authored with thriller writer Matt Rees, was posthumously published.
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Yehuda Avner was active in the religious Zionist youth movement, Bnei Akiva, and was committed to helping build a Jewish state.
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Yehuda Avner fought in the Siege of Jerusalem during Israel's 1948 War of Independence.
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Yehuda Avner temporarily moved back to Britain to work for the Bnei Akiva movement as National Director.
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Yehuda Avner returned to Israel with his wife in 1954.
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Yehuda Avner returned to and settled in Jerusalem in 1956, and joined the Israeli Foreign Service in 1958.
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Yehuda Avner served as press secretary, official notetaker, and liaison between the prime ministers of Israel and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
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Yehuda Avner documented many of these conversations, and later published some of the unclassified discussions.
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Yehuda Avner served in diplomatic positions at the Israeli Consulate in New York, and the Israeli Embassy to the US in Washington, DC In 1983, he was appointed Ambassador to Britain and Non-resident Ambassador to Ireland.
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Yehuda Avner returned to Israel in 1988, before serving as Ambassador to Australia between 1992 and 1995.
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In 2010, Yehuda Avner turned his insider stories of working in the upper echelons of Israeli politics and international diplomacy into a bestselling book, The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership.
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In 2013 and 2014, Academy Award-winning Moriah Films, a division of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, produced two documentaries based on Avner's book: The Prime Ministers I: The Pioneers, which focuses on Yehuda Avner's time working with Israeli Prime Ministers Eshkol and Meir, and The Prime Ministers II: Soldiers and Peacemakers, which focuses on his time serving Israeli Prime Ministers Rabin and Begin.
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Yehuda Avner was a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a member of the Ambassadorial Appointments Committee, and a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor.
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In 2012, Yehuda Avner received an honorary doctorate from Yeshiva University and presented the university's commencement's keynote address.
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Yehuda Avner died on March 24,2015, from cancer at the age of 86.