Yehuda Avner

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 positions at the Israeli Consulate in New York, and the Israeli Embassy 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 memoir, The Prime Ministers, which subsequently became the basis for a two-part documentary film. In 2015, his novel, The Ambassador, which Avner co-authored with crime writer Matt Rees, was posthumously published.

Biography

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 Palestine. 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.