Yair Auron

Yair Auron was born in 1945 in Mandatory Palestine

Yair Auron was born on April 30, 1945. He grew up in Tel Aviv, the son of parents who came from Poland. His father worked in a textile factory and his mother was a homemaker. He is the younger brother of Haim Oron, a former Meretz chairman and minister.

He served as a combat soldier and fought in the Six-Day War, where he was wounded by a shell. A close friend standing beside him was killed.

He earned a bachelor's degree in history and sociology at Tel Aviv University in 1972 and a master's degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1976. In 1980 he completed a doctorate at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris on Jewish youth movements in France.

From 1974 to 1976 he directed the education department at Yad Vashem. He later worked at the Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University institutes, and from 1996 to 1999 headed cultural studies at the Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel. He joined the Open University, where he headed the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication from 2005, and wrote books on Israel, Zionism and the Armenian Genocide.

He is a professor emeritus at the Open University. He is divorced with 3 children and lives in Neve Shalom. His latest book, written after retirement, is about gardening.