Yehuda Lapidot

Yehuda Lapidot was born in 1928 in Mandatory Palestine

Yehuda Lapidot was born in Mandatory Palestine on 13 August 1928. At age 15 he joined the Irgun under the code name Nimrod. He looked after weapon stores in Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak.

He took part in operations against British rule and was badly wounded in the arm in a 1946 attack on railways in the south. He then directed the foreign press section of the Irgun's propaganda department. In 1947 he moved to Jerusalem, where he fought at Deir Yassin, at Ramat Rachel and in Operation Kedem.

In 1949 he began studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and earned a PhD in biochemistry in 1960. He studied how proteins are made and wrote textbooks in the field. In 1973 he became a full professor at the university.

In 1981 Prime Minister Menachem Begin named him head of Nativ, which kept contact with Jews in the Eastern Bloc. He held the post until 1985. After retiring in 1988, he researched the Mandate era and the Irgun and wrote 4 books in the 1990s.

He received the Yakir Yerushalayim award in 2008. He died on 11 August 2026 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.