Aharon Harel

Aharon Harel was born in 1932 in Pinsk

Aharon Harel was born Aharon Garbuz in Pinsk, then in Poland, to Bella and Simcha Garbuz. In 1935 he came to Mandatory Palestine with his parents, who settled in the Borochov neighborhood of Givatayim. His brothers are the painter Yair Garbuz and Alon Garbuz, director of the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.

As a youth he was active in the Haganah and in HaNoar HaOved, and coordinated its Borochov branch. He studied economics and statistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and later studied management and labor relations at the Technion. He later finished a master's degree.

In Mapai he headed party departments, and in 1965 he joined the group that formed Rafi. From 1970 to 1981 he chaired the Organization and Workers Council department of the Histadrut. He lectured at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and at the Technion.

He was elected to the Knesset in 1981 on the Alignment list and was re-elected in 1984. That year he also became director of Beit Berl. In 1988 he resigned from the Knesset to become chairman of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, a post he left in 1992.

After leaving the broadcasting authority he founded a television production and publishing company, Zebra Productions. He married the writer Nira Harel in 1956, and they had 4 children, including Asaf Harel. He died on 13 December 2000.