Mordechai Gazit’s life and public service alongside events in Israel and the world: a sourced timeline with links for further reading.
One life through a century of change. Milestones in his life alongside events of the same period.
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Mordechai’s life
Mordechai Weinstein, later Gazit, was born in Istanbul on 5 September 1922. His parents were Tzipora and Ephraim. His younger brother, Shlomo, would become a senior military officer; their elder sister was Sarah.
Israel and the world
In the months after his birth in Istanbul, the Ottoman sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922. The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed on 29 October 1923.
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The family immigrated to Mandatory Palestine during his childhood. In a later interview, Shlomo recalled their German-speaking home and how Mordechai and Sarah had already attended school in Turkey and could read and write German. Sources differ on whether the family arrived in 1932 or 1933, so the broader date—the early 1930s—is retained here.
Israel and the world
The family arrived during the British Mandate. Jewish communal institutions developed amid growing tensions between Jews, Arabs and the Mandate authorities, years before the establishment of Israel.
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Gazit joined the Haganah at fourteen and completed officer training in 1943. He also earned a master’s degree in archaeology at the Hebrew University. According to Wikipedia, in 1946 he was chosen for the first class of the diplomatic school set up by the Jewish Agency’s Political Department to prepare a foreign service for the future state.
Israel and the world
The Haganah was the principal military organisation of the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine. Its command training and units formed part of the foundation of the Israel Defense Forces in 1948.
Explore on WikipediaHis officer training took place during World War II and the Holocaust. The war ended in 1945, leaving a transformed international order.
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According to Moriah’s history, Gazit entered the Jewish Quarter on 10 December 1947 as intended deputy commander. He recalled leaving after a week.
Israel and the world
After the UN General Assembly’s partition decision on 29 November 1947, fighting spread in Jerusalem and the Jewish Quarter’s defenders needed reinforcement.
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At Qastal, Gazit commanded Moriah’s exhausted defenders and sought relief. They withdrew on 8 April 1948; the battalion history records his head wound.
Israel and the world
The fighting at Qastal formed part of Operation Nachshon and the effort to bring supplies into Jerusalem. Control of the hill overlooking the road changed during the battles; its recapture helped reopen the route temporarily.
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On the night of 18–19 May 1948, Gazit led reinforcements and supplies into the Jewish Quarter through Zion Gate. He was severely wounded that day. Accounts differ on the timing of his injury and whether he assumed command of the Quarter. The injury ended his combat service and cost him a lung. In a 1980 interview he said it “gave me further impetus to go on in government.”
Israel and the world
Jerusalem and its supply routes were a central theatre of the war. The fighting left the city divided: West Jerusalem under Israeli control, and East Jerusalem and the Old City under Jordanian control.
Explore on WikipediaYehuda Lapidot describes an injury during a dawn inspection after Gazit assumed command. Rami Yizre’el gives the afternoon and says he could not assume command as planned. The discrepancy remains unresolved.
Mordechai’s life
According to Israel Ben-Dor’s study, Gazit joined Eleazar Galili’s team at Maarachot in spring 1949 to research and write the history of the War of Independence.
Israel and the world
The Maarachot team gathered documents and testimony to study the battles and draw lessons from them, passing combat experience to those who followed.
Mordechai’s life
Gazit joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He later served in London and Rangoon and became political secretary and head of the office of Foreign Minister Golda Meir. These years established a professional path between Israel’s missions abroad and policy work in Jerusalem.
Israel and the world
Israel signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The agreements established military demarcation lines, but were not peace treaties—the setting in which the young state’s foreign service worked.
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An American memorandum from August 1960 introduces Gazit as the embassy’s new minister, serving alongside Ambassador Avraham Harman. JTA reported his arrival on 11 July 1960, succeeding Yaacov Herzog; he had previously headed the Foreign Minister’s office. Three years later, a Geva newsreel records him signing on Israel’s behalf to join the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. At a farewell reception given for him and his wife by Ambassador Harman in July 1965, it was noted that he had frequently served as chargé d’affaires during his five years in Washington. The document and film preserve two aspects of diplomatic service: working discussions and public representation.
Watch the signing in 1963Israel and the world
Security and diplomatic ties between the two countries deepened, alongside disagreements including the Dimona issue. This was the backdrop to Gazit’s work in Washington.
Explore on WikipediaThe treaty signed in Moscow prohibited nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space and underwater, seeking to reduce radioactive fallout. Underground tests remained outside the ban.
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On returning from Washington, Gazit took up a senior post at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem focused on Middle Eastern affairs. In February 1967, JTA reported that Shlomo Hillel had been appointed deputy director-general and head of the Middle East department in his place.
Israel and the world
The Middle East was the central focus of Israeli foreign policy in the months before the war of June 1967.
Mordechai’s life
On 23 February, Gazit wrote a survey on Iran, cited in Uri Bialer’s research.
Israel and the world
Bialer links Iranian oil and pipeline discussions with Israeli diplomacy.
Mordechai’s life
Gazit represented Israel in confidential meetings with Soviet envoys.
Israel and the world
The USSR had severed relations with Israel.
Mordechai’s life
After the Middle East department, Gazit served as an adviser at the Foreign Ministry and head of its special-assignments division. In 1969–1970 he was deputy director-general of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption; Maariv reported the appointment on 13 May 1969. He then returned to the Foreign Ministry as deputy director-general responsible for relations with the United States and Canada.
Israel and the world
The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption was established in 1968, with Yigal Allon as its first minister.
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He served as Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1972–1973. In March 1973, he became Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office, serving Golda Meir and later Yitzhak Rabin. His testimony to the Agranat Commission and records of talks with the US administration document his work during the war and the diplomacy that followed. In his interview with Ken Stein, he said he had proposed that Israeli and Egyptian officers negotiate face to face, at the Kilometer 101 talks. In June 1973, during Chancellor Willy Brandt’s visit, Gazit briefed the press in English, stressing that Israel had no objection to friendly nations maintaining good relations with the Arab states. In August 1975, at the end of his term as Director-General and the Prime Minister’s political adviser, he travelled to Washington with the Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser, Meir Rosenne, to work on the legal and political wording of the interim agreement. Before the cabinet meeting, ministers raised a toast to him and to his successor, Amos Eran.
Read the testimonyIsrael and the world
The war began with Egyptian and Syrian attacks on 6 October. Alongside the fighting, efforts to secure assistance and negotiate a ceasefire unfolded in a crisis involving the superpowers.
Explore on WikipediaThe agreement of 18 January provided for withdrawals, force limitations and a UN buffer zone near the Suez Canal. It was a step from war towards a sequence of negotiated arrangements.
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On 4 September, Gazit signed the Sinai Interim Agreement in Geneva alongside Major General Herzl Shafir. On 22 September, the two also initialled the implementation protocol and maps. These were distinct steps in the diplomatic process that preceded the peace treaty of 1979. Reporting from Geneva described Gazit as head of the Israeli delegation and ambassador-designate to France. In a 1980 interview he recalled that Sadat refused to let the talks run into 1976, fearing the American election campaign would weaken Egypt’s position. The Muslim day of rest and the High Holidays that fell that September left few working days, so two consecutive 24-hour sessions were needed — a detail he remembered with a smile.
Explore the agreement recordsIsrael and the world
The interim agreement, reached through Henry Kissinger’s mediation, provided for a further Israeli withdrawal in Sinai and a commitment to resolve the conflict peacefully. It preceded the peace treaty signed four years later.
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Gazit represented Israel in Paris from 1975 to 1979, according to his publisher’s biography. His tenure included the crisis following Abu Daoud’s release and continued discussions with the French government. Some other secondary sources date the start of his ambassadorship to 1976; as early as September 1975, the press described him as ambassador-designate to France.
Meet the ambassador in ParisIsrael and the world
The peace treaty was signed in Washington on 26 March, following the Camp David Accords. It provided for an end to the state of war, diplomatic relations and Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai, following the earlier agreements.
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In 1980, after 31 years of service, he became a fellow at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. He saw research as an extension of his career rather than a departure from it: a practitioner, he said, could offer political science a different angle from a theorist’s. Of his archaeology degree, he recalled that the war led him to keep “serving the new state rather than minding my own little shop.” His books and articles examined negotiation, Kennedy’s policies, and Israel’s relations with the United States and its neighbours. He was a research fellow at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University.
Explore the Truman Institute and his writingIsrael and the world
During his years of research, the international landscape changed: communist governments in Eastern Europe fell in 1989, and the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. The confrontation between the blocs that had framed much of his service came to an end.
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Mordechai Gazit died on 29 May 2016, aged 93. The surviving documents, books and photographs allow later generations to learn about his work. For his family, they also preserve precious moments with Motke himself.
Israel and the world
His life connects the defence of Jerusalem, the development of Israel’s foreign service and the diplomatic effort to reach agreements. Alongside family memories, contemporary documents and testimony offer a way to revisit the events and understand his part in them.
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