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Amos Elon

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Amos Elon in 1949.

Amos Elon (Hebrew: עמוס אילון, July 4, 1926 – May 25, 2009) was an Israeli journalist and author.

Biography

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Heinrich Sternbach (later Amos Elon) was born in Vienna. He immigrated to Mandate Palestine as a child in 1933. He studied law and history in Israel and England.[1] He married Beth Drexler, a New York-born literary agent, with whom he had one daughter, Danae.[2] In the 1990s, Elon began to spend much of his time in Italy. In 2004 he moved there permanently, citing disillusionment with developments in Israel since 1967. Elon died of leukemia on May 25, 2009 in Borgo Buggiano in Tuscany, Italy, aged 82. In 2005, his daughter Danae produced a biographical film about him, entitled Another Road Home.[3]

Journalistic career

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Beginning in the 1950s, Elon served as a correspondent on European and American affairs for the newspaper Haaretz.[3] He took a leave of absence from Haaretz in 1971 and resumed in 1978. Elon retired from Haaretz in 2001. Elon was an early advocate for the creation of a Palestinian state and withdrawal from the territories occupied by Israel in 1967.[1] Elon also spoke out against Armenian genocide denial and Yad Vashem's boycott of the 1982 International Conference on Holocaust and Genocide over its inclusion of the Armenian genocide.[4]

Elon was the author of nine books.[3] He rose to international fame in the early 1970s after publishing The Israelis: Founders and Sons, described as "an affectionate but unsparing portrait of the early Zionists".[5] A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and The New York Times Magazine,[6] he was widely regarded as one of Israel's leading journalists for many years.[3]

Zionism

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In 1975 he wrote an admiring if critical biography of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, but later grew disillusioned.[7] In 2004 he sold his home in Jerusalem and moved to Tuscany. In an interview that year with Ari Shavit he stated that Zionism had "exhausted itself" and that he had come to consider it "perhaps the least successful attempt at colonialism that I can think of. This is the crappiest colonial regime that I can think of in the modern age."[8]

Academic career

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In 2007–2008, Elon was a fellow at the Center for Law and Security at New York University School of Law.[1]

Published works

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Amos Elon's Bio Archived February 27, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ David B. Green (3 July 2009). "To cut or not to cut". Haaretz. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  3. ^ a b c d theguardian.com: "Amos Elon", 4 Jun 2009
  4. ^ Auron, Yair (2003). The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide. Rutgers University Press. pp. 223–224. ISBN 0-7658-0834-X.
  5. ^ Ethan Bronner (25 May 2009). "Amos Elon, Israeli Author, Dies at 82". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  6. ^ "Amos Elon". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
  7. ^ Ethan Bronner, Amos Elon. Israel Author, Dies at 82 New York Times May 25, 2009
  8. ^ Donald Macintyre, Amos Elon: Writer who became disillusioned with Zionism and advocated Palestinian self-determination The Independent 28 May 2009.
  9. ^ latimes.com: "Hub of Ages : JERUSALEM: City of Mirrors by Amos Elon (Little, Brown: $19.95; 304 pp.)"
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