Yosef Rom

Yosef Rom was born in 1932 in Warsaw

Yosef Rom was born Yosef Rabinovich in Warsaw, Poland, in 1932. His family moved to Mandatory Palestine in 1935. He finished high school at Ironi Alef in Tel Aviv.

He studied mechanical and aeronautical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He earned a doctorate in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1957 and worked there as a research associate until 1958.

Back in Israel he taught at the Technion and served several times as dean of its aeronautical engineering faculty. In 1974 he was given the Lady Davis chair in experimental aerodynamics, and from 1970 to 1972 he headed the wind tunnels and aerodynamic laboratories. He advised the defense establishment and won the Israel Prize for technology and engineering in 1976.

In 1976 he joined Herut and led its Haifa branch, and from 1977 to 1981 he chaired its Young Guard. He entered the Knesset on the Likud list in 1977, was reelected in 1981 and lost his seat in 1984. In the Knesset he backed the Lavi project, wider arms development and settlement building.

He was married to Yael Rom, the first woman to complete the IDF pilot course, and they had 3 children. He died in Haifa in 1997.