Hagai Ron

Hagai Ron was born in 1944 in Beit HaArava

Ron was born in Kibbutz Beit HaArava, north of the Dead Sea. In May 1948 the kibbutz members were evacuated to Kibbutz Shfayim under pressure from the Jordanian army. His parents were among those who then founded Kibbutz Kabri in the Western Galilee, which stayed his home all his life.

He joined the paratroopers in 1962. In 1965 he did a year of national service in Haifa with the Machanot Ha'Olim youth movement, where he met his wife Hadva. He fought as a reservist in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.

Ron earned all his degrees at the Hebrew University, completing his doctorate between 1979 and 1984, partly at Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford in 1985-1986. During his studies he served twice as secretary of Kibbutz Kabri.

He set up the first paleomagnetic laboratory in Israel at the Geophysical Institute of Israel and moved it to the Hebrew University in 2001. His research covered block rotation, the Dead Sea transform, lake sediments, archaeomagnetism and historical earthquakes. With Amos Nur he produced a documentary on earthquakes in the Holy Land.

Ron fell seriously ill and died in 2012. He was buried in Kibbutz Kabri. In 2015 the African Archaeological Review published a special issue in his memory.