Yosef Gorny

Yosef Gorny was born in 1933 in Warsaw

Gorny was born in Warsaw in 1933. When World War II began, his parents fled to Lviv and were then exiled by the Soviet authorities to Siberia, which saved their lives. In 1947 the family reached the Land of Israel on an immigrant ship, was caught by the British and held at the Atlit camp, and later settled in the Tel Mond area.

He studied at the regional school in Tel Mond and served in the Golani Brigade from 1951 to 1954. He then studied Jewish history and general history at the Hebrew University. He married Geula Zipperman in 1958, and they had 2 sons.

From 1958 he taught at a high school in Herzliya for 10 years, and he earned a master's degree at Tel Aviv University in 1965. He completed his doctorate on Ahdut HaAvoda in 1971, and the book based on it won the Yitzhak Ben-Zvi Prize. He lectured at Tel Aviv University from 1971 and rose to full professor.

At the university he headed the Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and the Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, and later the institute for research on Jewish press. His research covers Zionism and the Bund and the ideas of leaders such as Herzl and Ben-Gurion. In 2006 he shared the Bialik Prize for Jewish thought.