Gilles-William Goldnadel

Gilles-William Goldnadel was born in 1954 in Rouen

Gilles-William Goldnadel was born on 12 January 1954 in Rouen, in northern France. His father, Henri Goldnadel, was of Polish Jewish descent, and his mother, Victoria Schwartz, is of Lithuanian Jewish descent. He grew up in Gournay-en-Bray, where the family owned a clothing store.

He studied at the Lycée des Bruyères in Rouen. He later earned a master's degree in law from Panthéon-Sorbonne University.

As a lawyer he has represented clients such as Arcadi Gaydamak, Oriana Fallaci, Maurice Arreckx in 1996 and Patrick Buisson in 2014. He has written 8 books and writes columns for Le Figaro and Valeurs Actuelles. He leads the Association France-Israël and has sat on the steering committee of the CRIF since 2010.

He first visited Israel in 1971 and became an Israeli citizen in 2000. He is married to the painter Béatrice Vonderweidt, and they live in Neuilly-sur-Seine with a son and a daughter living in Israel. He was convicted of defamation in 2009 and again at first instance in July 2025, a conviction that became final when he withdrew his appeal.