Eli Amir

Eli Amir was born in 1937 in Baghdad

Eli Amir was born in Baghdad in 1937 as Fuad Elias Nasah Halschi. His family immigrated to Israel in 1950 and lived in an immigrant camp and a transit camp. He then joined a Youth Aliyah group at Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek.

In 1954 he moved alone to Jerusalem, where he studied at a night school for working youth and worked as a messenger in the Prime Minister's Office. After finishing school he joined the IDF. Later he studied Arabic literature and Middle Eastern studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

From 1964 to 1968 he worked for the Prime Minister's adviser on Arab affairs and ran the adviser's office in East Jerusalem after the Six-Day War. He then helped set up the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and held several posts there. From 1975 to 1978 he directed the Sephardic Federation in the United States.

In 1984 he became director general of Youth Aliyah at the Jewish Agency. He began publishing fiction in 1975, and his first novel, Scapegoat, drew on his own youth on a kibbutz. Later novels include The Dove Flyer, Saul's Love, Jasmine and The Bicycle Boy.

In 2006 his name was raised as a possible President of Israel. In 2017 he lit a torch at the Independence Day ceremony, and in 2019 he received the Brenner Prize. He lives in Gilo, Jerusalem, and has 3 children.