Shmuel Toledano

Shmuel Toledano was born in 1921 in Tiberias

Toledano was born in Tiberias in 1921 to Hana and Rabbi Baruch Toledano. His grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda Toledano, came to Tiberias from Meknes in Morocco in 1862. He studied at the Scottish College in Safed, where Jews and Arabs studied together.

As a young man he was active in the Haganah and was held by the British in the Latrun detention camp. In the 1948 war he served as an intelligence officer. He founded and led a unit for open-source intelligence and left the army in 1952 as a major.

He joined the Mossad in 1953. He headed a unit that brought Jews from Arab and Muslim countries to Israel and later served as deputy director. In 1965 he became adviser on Arab affairs to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and kept the post under Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin.

In 1977 he left Mapai for the Democratic Movement for Change and was elected to the Knesset, where he chaired the State Control Committee. After the party split he joined Shinui. He lost his seat in 1981 and moved to Mapam in 1983.

He received the Mount Zion Award in 1999 for his peace work. He lived in Rehavia in Jerusalem and died on 30 December 2022.