Uri avnery biography

Avnery was born as Helmut Ostermann in Beckum, Germany.
Uri Avnery was a German-born Israeli writer, journalist, politician, and activist, who founded the Gush Shalom peace movement.
Uri Avnery - peace activist, journalist, writer.

•

Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery (Hebrew: אורי אבנרי, also transliterated Uri Avneri, 10 September 1923 – 20 August 2018) was an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalompeace movement.

Avnery was born as Helmut Ostermann in Beckum, Germany.^[1]

Avnery was a member of the Irgun as a teenager, he sat in the Knesset from 1965 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1981.^[2] He was also the owner of HaOlam HaZeh, an Israeli news magazine, from 1950 until it closed in 1993.^[3]

He was famous for crossing the lines during the Siege of Beirut to meet Yassir Arafat on 3 July 1982, the first time the Palestinian leader ever met with an Israeli.^[3] Avnery is the author of several books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including 1948: A Soldier’s Tale, the Bloody Road to Jerusalem (2008); Israel’s Vicious Circle (2008); and My Friend, the Enemy (1986).

On 4 August 2018, Avnery suffered a stroke and was hospitalized in Tel Aviv in a critical condition.^[4] He died on 20 August 2018 at the age of 94.^[5]

References

[cha

•

September 10, 1923

Journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery is born Helmut Ostermann in Beckum, Germany.

After Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933, Uri’s father, an upper-class Zionist, moves the family to Haifa, then to Tel Aviv. In their move to Palestine, they lose their wealth, and Avnery grows up in extreme poverty and must leave school at age 14. He joins the Irgun underground in 1938 and remains with the militia until 1941. After fighting in the War of Independence, Avnery begins to focus on the necessity for peace between Jews and Arabs. The idea of a partnership between the Israeli and Arab national movements becomes the core of his worldview and writings.

Based on his war experiences, he writes “In the Fields of the Philistines, 1948,” which becomes a best-seller. His next book, “The Other Side of the Coin,” creates controversy because it describes the atrocities of the war and the expulsion of Palestinians.

Avnery buys the weekly newspaper HaOlam HaZeh with a friend in 1950 and uses it to promote his political views. He writes about corruption and censorship, att

•

Uri Avnery - peace activist, journalist, writer.

founding member, Gush Shalom (peace bloc), independent peace movement (1993)
former publisher and editor-in-chief, Haolam Hazeh news magazine (1950-1990)
former member of the Knesset (three terms: 1965-1969, 1969-1973, 1979-1981)
founding member, Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (1975)
columnist, Internet.

born: September 10, 1923, Beckum, Germany
immigration to Palestine: November 1933
spouse: Rachel Avnery, peace activist, teacher, photographer
underground: member of the Irgun, 1938-1942
army service: member of "Samson's Foxes", motorized commando unit, 1948 war, severely wounded in battle of al-Faluja, December 1948

Son of a well-established German-Jewish family, originally from the Rhine area. (Avnery jests that his family believed that they had come to Germany with Julius Ceasar, but that "no archaeological proof has yet been found".)

At left, with his family in Germany, 1930

His father was a private banker in Beckum, and later on a financial adviser in Hannover, where his famil