Yitzhak Mayer

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Yitzhak Mayer ( Hebrew יצחק מאיר; * October 4, 1934 in Antwerp ; † June 9, 2020 ) was an Israeli diplomat .

youth

Escape from Antwerp

Mayer grew up in Antwerp. The family fled the city on May 10, 1940; two days before the arrival of the Wehrmacht . Mayer was five years old at the time. The family traveled to France on a crowded train . This was shot at during its journey, but two wagons arrived in the south of France. There the inmates were imprisoned on the Spanish-French border and locked in a camp. Mayer's father managed to escape from here in order to join the Resistance . When the rest of the family was released, they went to Marseille together , where they pretended to be French and lived. When Mayer's father forged papers for the Resistance, he was denounced. Arrested in January 1943, he was subsequently deported to Auschwitz .

Mayer's mother, unable to pretend to be French due to a lack of language skills, decided to flee to Switzerland with her two sons. It took the family two months to reach the Swiss border . The family escaped rejection because Mayer's mother was heavily pregnant. The family now came into the in canton Zurich located Eglisau and remained until 1946 in Switzerland. Mayer's youngest brother was born in March 1943. Mayer's father was killed during the Holocaust .

Arrival in Palestine

In 1946 the Mayer family emigrated from France on the Champollion to the British mandate of Palestine . This was necessary because only Mayer and his second youngest brother had the necessary certificates through Youth Aliya . During the crossing, the overcrowded ship was seized by the Hagana . This confiscated all certificates and destroyed them so that the British authorities would no longer be able to differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants. Once in the mandate area, the family was sent to Atlit . They later found a sister of Mayer's mother who had also escaped the Holocaust.

Studies and diplomatic career

Mayer studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and worked as a teacher. In 1957 he married. The marriage produced three daughters. Shortly after their wedding, Mayer and his wife were sent to London to represent Bnei Akiva . Back in Israel, Mayer became director of the Yemin Orde Youth Aliya Village . During this time he began to get involved in the National Religious Party and the Jewish Agency .

From 1979 he worked in the diplomatic service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His first post took him to Zurich , where he served as Israeli consul general from 1979 to 1980 . In 1991 he became the Israeli ambassador to Belgium. In 1997, he became the Israeli ambassador to Switzerland and presented his credentials to the Federal Council on October 20. In 2000 he was recalled from this post.

literature

  • Victor J. Seidler: Shadows of the Shoah: Jewish identity and belonging (2000)

Web links

References and comments

  1. ^ Yitzhak Mayer, ami de Kasparov et ambassadeur itinérant des échecs. In: Le Temps . July 27, 2000.
  2. ^ Yitzhak Mayer Lexicon of the New Hebrew Literature
  3. ↑ Death report ( Hebrew )
  4. ↑ Mayer's second youngest brother died in the Six Day War .
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Yitzhak
ALTERNATIVE NAMES יצחק מאיר (Hebrew)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli diplomat of Belgian origin
DATE OF BIRTH 4th October 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 2020