Ze'ev Ben Aryeh

Ze'ev Ben Aryeh was born in 1945 in Kharkiv

Ze'ev Ben Aryeh was born Vladimir Flanchik on October 30, 1945, in Kharkiv, then in the Soviet Union. He studied at the University of Kharkiv and moved to Israel in 1971 after finishing his studies.

In 1972 he started working at Kol Israel, where he headed the Russian-language news department for many years. In the 1990s he was on the editorial board of the Russian-language newspaper Vremia. He also translated several Hebrew books into Russian.

He joined the Israeli Foreign Service in 1993 and worked at embassies in Moscow, Minsk and Kyiv. From 1997 to 1998 he was chargé d'affaires in Minsk, and in 2004 he became ambassador to Belarus. In late 2009 he was named ambassador to Latvia and nonresident ambassador to Lithuania.

He was accused of passing Lieberman information about a Belarusian assistance request in a criminal probe into Lieberman. He was forced to resign from the Foreign Ministry on April 3, 2010. In June 2012 he pleaded guilty to disclosure in breach of duty and obstruction of justice in a plea bargain and received 4 months of community service, while Lieberman was acquitted.

He is married to Olga and has two children, George and Elena. He lives in Lotem.