Shlomo Aronson

Shlomo Aronson was born in 1936 in Tel Aviv

Shlomo Aronson was born in Tel Aviv to Yaakov and Bella Aronson. He was named after his grandfather, Rabbi Shlomo Aronson, the first chief rabbi of Tel Aviv.

While studying at the Hebrew University he was a news editor at Kol Israel, and he later reported for the station from Germany while studying there. He covered the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War as a military correspondent and ran the news team that set up Israeli television. He also wrote columns for Haaretz and Maariv.

In 1968 he left Israeli television and began teaching political science at the Hebrew University. He headed its Center for European Studies and later chaired Holocaust studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He advised documentary makers in Germany and at the BBC on Holocaust subjects.

In the 1981 elections he ran for the Knesset with Moshe Dayan's Telem party. His 2004 book on Hitler, the Allies and the Jews explained the Holocaust as a multiple trap and won two prizes. He retired in 2007, taught in Arizona from 2007 to 2009, and died in Kfar Saba in 2020.