Israel Shamir

Israel Shamir was born in 1947 in Novosibirsk

By his own account, Shamir was born in Novosibirsk to a Jewish family, with the birth name Izrail Schmerler. He says he studied mathematics and law in Novosibirsk. Critics, among them Norman Finkelstein, say his personal history is invented.

He says he moved to Israel in 1969 and served in the Paratroopers during the Yom Kippur War. He says he later worked as a journalist, including for the BBC, and translated works by Shai Agnon from Hebrew into Russian.

He was registered in Sweden in 1984 and gained Swedish citizenship in 1992. He says he wrote from Russia on its political changes until 1993, for papers including Pravda and Zavtra. He used the names Jöran Jermas and later Adam Ermash, while keeping Israel Shamir as a pen name.

His book Flowers of Galilee was withdrawn in France in 2003 and banned after a 2004 case brought by LICRA, a ban later overturned on appeal. Scholars and groups have described his writing as antisemitic, and he has denied being a Holocaust denier. In 2010 his links to WikiLeaks drew public attention, and in 2011 WikiLeaks said he had never worked for it.