Yehuda Avner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehuda_Avner

Yehuda Avner (Hebrew: יהודה אבנר‎; December 30, 1928 – March 24, 2015) was an Israeli prime ministerial advisor and diplomat. He served as advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, as speechwriter to Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Levi Eshkol, and as Israeli Ambassador to Australia and the United Kingdom. Yehuda Avner (originally Haffner) 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 his book 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.

Avner fought in the Siege of Jerusalem during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War following the establishment of Israel. In 1949, he was amongst the founders of Kibbutz Lavi, a religious kibbutz located in Israel's Galilee region. He temporarily moved back to Britain to work for the Bnei Akiva movement as National Director (Mazkir). In 1953, he married Mimi Cailingold, the sister of Esther Cailingold. He returned to Israel with his wife in 1954. The couple had four children.