Politicsמרדכי לוי

Mordechay Lewy

Mordechay Lewy is an Israeli diplomat who served as Israel's ambassador to the Holy See from 2008 to 2012.

born 1948Israeli ambassador to the Holy SeeResearch on Israeli-Vatican relationsHistory of Holy Land pilgrimage

Born: 15 May 1948, Afula
Occupation: diplomat, historian, medieval historian, Palestinologist
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Mordechay Lewy was born in 1948 in Afula

Mordechay Lewy was born on 15 May 1948 in Afula. He studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where his interest in medieval history and the history of Jerusalem began. He has been married twice and has 3 children.

Lewy joined the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1975. He served in Bonn, Stockholm and Berlin, where he was the first consul general after German unification, from 1991 to 1994. He was ambassador to Thailand and Cambodia from 1994 to 1997, and returned to Berlin in 2000 as deputy chief of mission.

From 2004 to 2008 he advised the mayor of Jerusalem on the city's Muslim and Christian communities. In May 2008 he became ambassador to the Holy See and held the post until July 2012.

Lewy has published research on Jewish-Catholic and Israeli-Vatican relations and on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 2011 he initiated an international colloquium on taboos as a subject of historical research at Urbaniana University. After his term in Rome he took early retirement to pursue doctoral research in medieval cartography, and in 2020 he received the Saxon Constitution Medal.