Mirza Khazar

Mirza Khazar was born in 1947 in Goychay

Mirza Khazar was born in Goychay, Azerbaijan, then part of the Soviet Union. He was a Mountain Jew and the grandson of a rabbi. He was also known as Mirza Michaeli.

He graduated from the law faculty of Azerbaijan State University in 1973 and worked as a lawyer in Sumgait. In June 1974 he immigrated to Israel and took courses for lawyers from the USSR at Tel Aviv University. He served in the IDF from June 1975 to January 1976.

At the request of the Institute for Bible Translation in Stockholm, he translated the Bible into Azerbaijani between 1975 and 1984. His New Testament came out in 1982 and was reprinted 5 times. His Old Testament translation has not been printed.

From 1976 he worked at the Azerbaijani Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, and from 1985 he was editor-in-chief of the Azerbaijani Service of Voice of America in Washington. He returned to Munich in 1987 to lead the Azerbaijani Service until 2003. During Black January in 1990, he and his staff broadcast daily reports from Baku.

In 2004 he founded the newspaper The Voice of Mirza Khazar in Baku, and in 2005 he hosted Azadlig TV and launched an Internet radio program. He published books in 2013 and 2014. He lived in Munich and died in Germany in 2020.