Born
Eli Gottlieb in
Radom in
Poland in 1932, Ben-Elissar was the son of a distinguished family. His parents were Eliezer and Hela (née Dobrzynska) Gottlieb. Eliezer and his brother, Jacob, owned and operated Brago, a successful foundry. Eli was the youngest of three siblings. The eldest, a sister Diana, was born on 7 August 1923, and a brother, Nathan, was born on 21 November 1925. Ten-year-old Gottlieb immigrated to
Mandate Palestine in 1942 with some members of a Radomer family named Graucher using a visa originally obtained for a son who had already been deported by the Nazis. Ironically, the name of the child whose death allowed Eli to survive was named Natan Chaim (Hebrew for "he gave life"). Gottlieb attended the Bilu School in
Tel Aviv, joined the
Irgun, and served in the
IDF until 1965. He subsequently graduated from the
University of Paris with a BA in Social Sciences and an MA in International Law and later earned a PhD at the
University of Geneva-affiliated
Graduate Institute of International Studies. Being in Palestine during the latter years of
the Holocaust, Ben-Elissar did not know the fate of his family until the war's end in 1945. With his father's death in the
Flossenbürg concentration camp, and his mother's demise due to a tragic road accident in Germany after the war, Ben-Elissar was orphaned at the age of 14. The effects of the Holocaust were always of great and enduring significance in his life. In 1947, Ben Elissar's sister, Diana, immigrated to the
United States with her new husband, Moshe (Murray) Weinstock. Raising three children, Leo, Allen, and Elaine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Diana remained a steadfast fixture in Ben-Elissar's life. His brother, Nathan, served in the IDF during the
1948 Arab-Israeli War, studied in Vienna, and emigrated to the United States in 1967 where he served as a cantor for many years. Nathan married Rochelle Kelman, and they had a daughter, Nechama. Ben-Elissar married Diana (née Dudel), and his second wife was Nitza (née Efroni). After receiving his doctorate, Ben Elissar became a journalist and then a spokesman for the
Herut party. He was appointed Director-General of the Prime Minister's Office of
Menachem Begin in 1977, a position he held until 1980 when he was appointed as Israel's first ambassador to
Egypt following the
Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. In 1981 he left his ambassadorial post, and was
elected to the Knesset on the
Likud list. During his first Knesset term he chaired the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He was re-elected in
1984,
1988,
1992, and
1996, and again chaired the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee between 1988 and 1992. In 1998, he was appointed ambassador to France. He authored several books in Hebrew and in French. He died in
Paris on 12 August 2000 of cardiac arrest. He is buried in the
Mount of Olives Jewish Cemetery in
Jerusalem, next to his mother, sister, brother, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and uncle. ==Bibliography==