| Zvi Elpeleg | |
| Birth Date: | 1926 |
| Birth Place: | Baranow, Poland |
| Nationality: | Israeli |
| Spouse: | Michal Snunit |
Zvi Elpeleg (1926 – 27 June 2015) was an academic, author, and a senior researcher at the Dayan Institute at Tel Aviv University. Born in Poland, Elpeleg served as a colonel in the Israeli army and later received an ambassadorial appointment.[1]
Elpeleg was born in 1926 in Baranow, Poland to his parents Rivka (née Zayfntreger) and Yosef Elphlang. His father was a carpenter and his mother a house wife. Elpeleg was the second of four siblings: Hadasa (1924), David (1928) and Yerachmiel (1929). In 1934 the family came to Israel and settled in the Makabi-Tzrifim neighbourhood in Jaffa. Following David Ben-Gurion instruction that officers should change their family name to a Hebrew one, Elpeleg changed his name from Elphlang to Elpeleg.
In the mid-1950s Elpeleg was the military governor of the Triangle and from 1956 to 1957 the military governor of Gaza.[2] [3] He became Israel's first military governor of the West Bank in 1967.[4] He would repeat the role during the Israeli occupation of the Fayid region in Egypt in 1973, and again in occupied South Lebanon in 1982.[2]
He served as Israel's ambassador to Turkey from 1995 to 1997.[5]
He entered academia as an Arabist and, since 1972, he has been attached as senior researcher to the Dayan Institute.[2] He has authored a biography of Haj Amin al-Husseini,[6] which is considered one of the standard works on the man.
Zvi Elpeleg served as chairman of the Turkey-Israel Friendship Association and was appointed Turkey's honorary consul to Tel Aviv by the former Turkish president Süleyman Demirel[7] in gratitude for the role he played in overseeing Israeli IDF Aid for Turkish Earthquake Victims in August 1999.[8]
He was married to the poet Michal Snunit. Elpeleg died on 27 June 2015.[9]