Gideon Rafael

Gideon Rafael was born in 1913 in German Empire

Gideon Rafael was born Georg Ruffer in Berlin in 1913 to a Jewish family. His father was a furrier. He studied law at the University of Berlin.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, he moved to France and studied at an agricultural school in Toulouse. In 1934 he immigrated to Palestine and helped found kibbutz HaZore'a.

He joined the Haganah and was sent to Europe on missions linked to illegal Jewish immigration. In 1940 he held talks with representatives of Adolf Eichmann on moving about 40,000 German Jews to Palestine through Rhodes. The plan collapsed when Italy entered the war.

After serving in the British Army, he worked for the Jewish Agency from 1943. In 1945 he helped prepare the Jewish case for the Nuremberg Trials. In 1947 he joined the Jewish Agency delegation to the United Nations.

In 1948 he became an aide to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and then to Abba Eban at the UN. He later served as ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, ambassador to the UN, Director-General of the Foreign Ministry and ambassador to the United Kingdom. He retired in 1977 and died in 1999.