Haim Yisraeli passes away

Former senior Defense Ministry official Haim Yisraeli passed away on Tuesday, the eve of the Shavuot holiday, at the age of 84. Yisraeli was a close adviser to most of Israel's defense ministers for more than 50 years and worked under no fewer than 14 of them, including David Ben-Gurion, Pinhas Lavon, Levi Eshkol, Moshe Dayan, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.

Yisraeli began his career in the defense system as a close assistant to Nehemiah Argov, military adviser to Israel's first Prime Minister and Defense Minister, David Ben-Gurion. Yisraeli remained loyal to Ben-Gurion and continued serving him when he retired to Kibbutz Sde Boker, in the Negev desert. Ben-Gurion himself wrote of Yisraeli: "If everyone were as loyal as he is, we would be living in Heaven." In 1998, Yisraeli was awarded the Israel Prize for his special contribution to society and to the state.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak's office, which worked with Yisraeli, issued a statement honoring him on Tuesday evening. "For two generations, since the establishment of the state of Israel, during wars and between them, Haim Yisraeli was a central supporting pillar in the management of the defense system, as a personal assistant; office manager and deputy general manager for almost every Israeli defense minister," the statement said. "Starting from the days of battle in the War of Independence, as assistant to the first Prime Minister and Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion, he dedicated his life to the defense system and played a part in every aspect of it for years and generations. The defense system has lost a member and friend, its most loyal supporter who looked out for everyone."

"Over the years he became a mythological figure; everyone consulted with him," Defense Ministry Procurement Director Aharon Marmarosh, who first met Yisraeli in the mid-1980's, said. "When people turned to him for help with personal problems, he always found a way to help ... prime ministers, other ministers, general managers and commanders-in-chief consulted with him. Essentially, everyone talked to him before going in to see the defense minister."

Yisraeli was buried on Thursday in the Kfar Nahman Cemetery in Ra'anana.