Eli Amir

Amir was born in Baghdad, Iraq. He immigrated to Israel with his family in 1950. He won the Yigal Alon prize for outstanding pioneering service to the Israeli society. Amir is well-known in Israel for his lectures, articles, radio and television programs and especially for his book, Scapegoat, a semi-autobiographical novel that depicts the integration of an Iraqi-Jewish youth in an Israeli transit camp soon after the establishment of the state. This and other novels by Amir are included in the secondary school sylabus.From 1964 to 1968 he served as adviser on Arab affairs to the Prime Minister of Israel, and as envoy for the Minister of Immigration Absorption of Israel to the United States. In 1984, he was appointed Director General of the Youth Aliyah department of the Jewish Agency.