Zvi Yanai

Zvi Yanai was born in 1935 in Pescara

He was born Alessandro (Sandro) Toth in Pescara, Italy. His father was a Christian opera singer and his mother a Jewish dancer of Hungarian origin, and they were not married. In 1942 he and his sisters converted to Catholicism, and in early 1944 his mother died.

Through contact with soldiers of the Jewish Brigade and his uncle Shaul Yanai, the three children sailed from Naples to Haifa in July 1945. After a short stay at the Atlit camp, they were taken in at Kibbutz Ramat David.

He joined the IDF in 1952, volunteered for the paratroopers and fought in reprisal operations and the Sinai campaign. In 1956 he took part in the world parachuting championship and changed his surname to Yanai.

In 1970 he joined IBM Israel as its spokesman and edited its journal Mahshavot until it closed in 1996. He presented television and radio programs on film and science. From 1993 to 1997 he was director general of the Ministry of Science.

His book Yours, Sandro came out in 2006 and won the Sapir Prize in 2008. He had 4 children and died on December 16, 2013. A lane near his home in Ramat Gan was later named after him.