Joseph Harmelin

Joseph Harmelin was born in 1922 in Vienna

Harmelin was born in Vienna in 1922. As a youth he belonged to the Maccabi youth movement and the Hakoah Vienna sports club. He came to Mandatory Palestine in 1939 with the Youth Aliyah program.

He studied at the Ben Shemen Youth Village and was part of the group that founded Kibbutz Neve Yam. He joined the Haganah, and in 1942 he volunteered for the British Army, where he served for 5 years. In the War of Independence he commanded a support company in the Givati Brigade.

He joined the Shin Bet in 1949 and became its deputy head in 1960. He led the agency from 1964 to 1974. He was then ambassador to Iran from 1978 to 1979, until the embassy in Tehran closed after the Iranian Revolution, and ambassador to South Africa from 1979 to 1981.

After Avraham Shalom resigned over the Bus 300 affair, Harmelin returned to head the Shin Bet from 1986 to 1988. He later worked for the Jerusalem municipality on immigrant absorption and chaired the Petroleum and Energy Infrastructures company. He died in 1994.