Boruch Dayan Hoemes: Ambassador Yehuda Avner, 86, OBM

Yehuda Avner, a senior advisor and speechwriter to five Israeli prime ministers and an articulate chronicler of the Jewish state’s history, passed away today in Jerusalem. He was 86 years old.

Avner 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.

Born in Manchester, England, he settled in Jerusalem in 1956 and joined the Israeli Foreign Service in 1958. For 25 years, Avner, a Modern Orthodox Jew, was posted to the Prime Minister’s office and worked for five Israeli prime ministers in the tumultuous early days of statehood.

Avner was standing by as Israel’s leaders took momentous decisions related to military operations and diplomatic negotiations, including Operation Entebbe, Operation Opera and the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.

As a diplomat, Avner served in diplomatic positions at the Israeli Consulate in New York City, and the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. In 1983, he was appointed Ambassador to Britain and Non-resident Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland. He returned to Israel in 1988, before serving as Ambassador to Australia between 1992 and 1995.

In a lecture sponsored by The Jewish Week in New York last year, Avner delighted a packed audience by recounting his own “10 Commandments” learned from a long life of service in tumultuous times.  They were:

1) When an enemy of our people says he seeks to destroy us, believe him.
2) Stand tall in the knowledge that every tyrant in history who has ever sought our destruction has himself been destroyed.
3) Protect Jewish dignity and honor at all cost. Life is holy, but there are times when one must risk life for the sake of life itself.
4) Never raise a hand against a fellow Jew no matter the provocation.
5) Give the enemy no quarter in demolishing his malicious propaganda.
6) Whenever a threat against a fellow Jew looms, do all in your power to come to his aid, whatever the sacrifice.
7) Never pause to wonder what others will think or say.
8) Be forever loyal to the historic truth that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people and Jerusalem its eternal capital.
9) Love peace, but love freedom more.
10) (Which is really Number 1): Build Jewish homes not by the accident of birth, but by the conviction of our eternal Torah.

Avner was married to Mimi (nee Callingold) and the couple had one son and three daughters.

A few years ago the JEM My Encounter team interviewed him and he shared a story about when Prime Minister Menachem Begin asked him to arrange a meeting with the Rebbe. Click Here to read that story.

His speech at the Kinus Hashluchim in 2008: