Shlomo Avineri

Shlomo Avineri was born in 1933 in Bielsko

Shlomo Avineri was born Jerzy Wiener in Bielsko, Poland, in 1933. In 1939 he moved to the Land of Israel with his parents.

He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the London School of Economics. He earned a master's degree in 1960 and a doctorate in 1964.

He joined the Hebrew University faculty in 1964 and became a full professor in 1974. He headed the political science department, served as dean of social sciences and led the Institute for European Studies. He wrote on Marx, Hegel, Herzl and Moses Hess, and published op-eds in Haaretz and other papers.

The Rabin government appointed him director-general of the Foreign Ministry, and the Likud opposition objected because he supported talks with the PLO. He resigned after the Likud won the 1977 elections. In 1979 he sat on the joint Egyptian-Israeli commission on a cultural and scientific agreement.

After the fall of the Soviet Union he helped democratization efforts in Eastern Europe and monitored elections. He received the Israel Prize in 1996. He was married to lawyer Dvora Avineri until her death in 2022, and he died in 2023.