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Yehuda Avner

Discussion in 'Roll of Honor & Memories - All Other Conflicts' started by GRW, Mar 31, 2015.

  1. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    "Yehuda Avner, who has died aged 86, worked as an adviser to five Israeli prime ministers and served as Israel’s ambassador to Britain from 1983 to 1988.
    In 2010 he published a memoir, The Prime Ministers, detailing his experiences at the heart of Israeli policymaking and bringing to life the personalities with whom he worked and the world events he witnessed.
    These, naturally, included Margaret Thatcher whom he got to know well after taking up his post in London after the attempted assassination of his predecessor Schlomo Argov by members of Abu Nidal’s Palestine splinter organisation. Noting that her government contained an unprecedented number of Jewish cabinet members, Avner found the prime minister to be a good friend to Israel and at their first meeting she readily agreed to pay an official visit to his country in 1986 — the first ever made by a serving British prime minister. “In turn, we accorded her the kind of reception normally reserved for heads of state,” he observed.
    In an article in the Jewish Chronicle in 2007 Avner recalled a lunch at 10 Downing Street which he had attended with Israel’s prime minister Menachem Begin, shortly after the 1979 election, at which Mrs Thatcher had confided to Begin the reasons for her admiration of Jewish people.
    Cherished virtues
    “It has to do with my Methodist upbringing,” she told Begin. “Methodism, you see, means method. It means sticking to your guns, dedication, determination, reverence for education — the very qualities you Jews have always cherished.” Mrs Thatcher’s eyes, Avner reported, were “ablaze with enthusiasm”.
    She went on: “Your marvellous Chief Rabbi here, Sir Immanuel Jakobovits, recently said that the term 'an illiterate Jew’ is an oxymoron. How right he is. He has such a high moral stature, such an inspiring commitment to the old-fashioned virtues, like community self-help, individual responsibility, personal accountability — all the things I deeply believe in.”
    Then, “with sudden exasperation”, Mrs Thatcher exclaimed: “Oh, how I wish our own Church leaders would take a leaf out of [the Chief Rabbi’s] book. Do you know, in all the many years I’ve represented Finchley, my parliamentary constituency, which, as you know has a high proportion of Jewish residents, I have never once had a Jew come to me in poverty. They are always so well looked after by their own. And that is absolutely splendid!”
    In fact Avner already knew Britain well, having been born and brought up in working-class Manchester. “The day I went to Buckingham Palace to present my credentials to the Queen, my arrival coincided with the changing of the guard, so when they made the salute it was if it was me they were saluting,” he recalled. “At that moment I looked upwards and thought: 'Mum and dad, I wish you could see me now.’ ”
    He was born Gubbi Haffner into an Orthodox Jewish family in the Strangeways district of Manchester on December 30 1928, changing his name to the Hebrew Yehuda Avner after emigrating to Jerusalem in 1947. While attending Manchester High School and the London School of Journalism he joined Zionist youth groups and, after travelling to Palestine, he fought in the siege of Jerusalem during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War following the establishment of Israel."
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11507212/Yehuda-Avner-Israeli-diplomat-obituary.html
     
  2. bronk7

    bronk7 Well-Known Member

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    I don't think we can even imagine what his life was like....how many wars? 48,'56,'67,'73,'82,...not to mention the many, many small 'incidents'.....how would you feel if your predecessor was almost assassinated??....Salute to him
     

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