Mordechai Gazit’s family: Sarah and Shlomo, Rina, Avner and Orna; an album of photographs, from the family and from public life; the memory of his nephew Dan Engel, and a tribute by his grandson Dan-Eyal.
Home, family and remembrance
Mordechai was Sarah’s younger brother and the elder brother of Shlomo Gazit. He married Rina, née Zalbansky (זלבנסקי), who became Rina Gazit. They had two children: their eldest, Avner, and their daughter, Orna. Both went on to build families of their own, a source of pride and a living continuation of the family’s story across generations.
His brother Shlomo, an IDF major general, served as head of Military Intelligence and later as president of Ben-Gurion University and director-general of the Jewish Agency. The brothers followed different paths of public service.Family
For many years Mordechai lived in Jerusalem’s Wolfson neighbourhood, near the Knesset. Mayor Teddy Kollek was not only a partner in the work on the city’s future, but a close friend.
Alongside its joys, the family also carried profound grief. As the family recalls, on 5 June 1967, the first day of the Six-Day War, Mordechai learned through his official duties, as events unfolded, that his nephew Dan Engel, Sarah’s son, had been killed. An Israeli Air Force pilot, Dan fell over Egypt during the attack on Inshas airfield, aged 22. His burial place remains unknown; a memorial stone stands on Mount Herzl. For Mordechai, public responsibility and personal loss met on that day. Dan’s memory remains inseparable from the family’s story.
From the family’s memories, as shared by Dan-Eyal Gazit.
In his own hand · 19 June 1948
A letter home, from hospital
A month after he was wounded in the Old City, Motke wrote to his parents. He told them the food was unreliable, that a parcel had come from Tel Aviv, and that he was engaged:
“By the way she is now taking care of me in Hospital from morning to evening and cooking special dishes for me.”
Only at the end did he add: “I forgot to tell you that I was wounded in the chest (lung)”.
Mordechai Gazit Archive (Truman Institute), The Digital Archives for Middle Eastern Studies and Israel Studies, The Library Authority, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Moments from the family album
Mordechai and Rina, the brothers across the years, and moments alongside the leaders he worked with. Most of the photographs were supplied by Dan-Eyal Gazit, with identifications from the family; the source of the others is given in the caption.
From left to right: Mordechai Gazit, Rina Gazit and Shlomo Gazit. The date and identification follow the family account supplied by Dan-Eyal.
January 1949: Mordechai, Rina and Shlomo
Mordechai Gazit and his wife Rina in a photograph from the family album. The date was not supplied.
Mordechai and Rina
Motke and Rina with their good friends Shula and Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, in 1948. Back, left to right: Rina and Motke. Front: Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Shula, in a bridal veil. According to the family, this is probably their wedding. Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt would become known as the father of Israeli sociology: he founded the first sociology department at the Hebrew University and won the Israel Prize in 1973. Year and identification as given by the family. The print was gently restored: turned upright, cleared of a faded pink cast and lightly sharpened, with no details altered.
1948: at Shula and Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt’s wedding
From right to left: Shlomo Gazit, Sarah Angel and Mordechai Gazit. Photograph and identification supplied by Dan-Eyal; his post credits an earlier sharing by Yoav Gazit, Shlomo’s son. The date was not supplied. Shown as supplied.
The three siblings: Mordechai, Sarah and Shlomo
Motke and Shlomo Gazit, the two of them alone in the photograph, at Orly’s home. As the family remembers it, it was taken at Motke’s 90th birthday celebration.
The two brothers, at the 90th birthday
The farewell to Prime Minister Golda Meir at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, 4 June 1974, with the incoming Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin. Photograph: Yaacov Saar, National Photo Collection. From right to left: Mordechai Gazit, Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office; Golda Meir; Yitzhak Rabin; and the Government Secretary, Gershon Avner. The collection’s caption lists the four in the reverse order; the identification here is the family’s. The album’s photographed print was turned upright, and its contrast and sharpness were gently improved, with no details altered.
4 June 1974: farewell to Golda Meir
Prime Minister Golda Meir and President Richard Nixon outside the White House, 1 November 1973, at the end of the Yom Kippur War. Mordechai Gazit, Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office, is at the far right, behind Henry Kissinger. Photograph: Marion S. Trikosko, U.S. News & World Report collection, Library of Congress.
1 November 1973: with Golda Meir at the White House
12 September 1974. A meeting in the White House Oval Office, with participants talking near the fireplace. The Ford Library’s original caption names U.S. President Gerald Ford, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Simcha Dinitz and Mordechai Gazit, alongside other participants. Photograph: William Fitz-Patrick. Courtesy Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. A0723-22A.
12 September 1974 · In the Oval Office, 1974
11 June 1975. A photo opportunity before U.S. President Gerald Ford’s meeting with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the Oval Office. The original caption also names Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Simcha Dinitz and Mordechai Gazit, Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office and Political Adviser to the Prime Minister. The media appear in the background. Photograph: William Fitz-Patrick. Courtesy Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. A4998-02.
11 June 1975 · Before the meeting, 1975
Mordechai Gazit, deep in thought. Photograph supplied by the family; the date, place and photographer were not supplied.
Deep in thought
Mordechai Gazit, a portrait from the family album: the photograph that opens this site. Gazit family album / Shy Adam, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0. The original file is shown, unretouched; the date of the photograph is not known.
A portrait
Mordechai Gazit (left) and Yitzhak Rabin reading a document together, in a working conversation. Identification by the family; the date was not supplied. Photograph courtesy of the Yitzhak Rabin Center.
At work with Yitzhak Rabin
Mordechai Gazit, Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office (front, left), beside Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the meeting with the Dutch Foreign Minister, Max van der Stoel. Jerusalem, April 1975. A frame from a British Pathé / Reuters newsreel, processed with AI for sharpness: fine details may differ from the original. The original frame, as filmed, is shown beside it in “The smile that remains”.
Geneva, 4 September 1975: Gazit signs the interim agreement with Egypt on Israel’s behalf, beside Major General Herzl Shafir. Photograph: Pierre Vauthey / Sygma, via Getty Images. Shown in Getty Images’ own viewer and loaded from its servers.
From right to left: Joseph Sisco, the American diplomat who worked alongside Henry Kissinger; Mordechai Gazit; and Dan Pattir, media adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Identification by the family; the date and place were not supplied. Photograph courtesy of the Yitzhak Rabin Center.
With Joseph Sisco and Dan Pattir
Mordechai Gazit (first from the right, slightly behind) with Yitzhak Rabin, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Joseph Sisco, a senior State Department official, facing reporters’ microphones. Behind them: Simcha Dinitz, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. Identification by the family; the date and place were not supplied. Photograph courtesy of the Yitzhak Rabin Center.
Facing the microphones, with Rabin and Kissinger
Mordechai Gazit and Yitzhak Rabin sit facing Henry Kissinger; standing, pipe in mouth: Simcha Dinitz. Identification by the family; the date and place were not supplied. Photograph courtesy of the Yitzhak Rabin Center. The photographed print was straightened and its margins trimmed, with no detail changed.
At the negotiating table, facing Kissinger
Mordechai Gazit (left) in conversation with Shulamit Aloni. Identification by the family; the date and place were not supplied. Photograph courtesy of the Government Press Office.
With Shulamit Aloni
Mordechai Gazit at a formal reception; Moshe Dayan on the right. Identification by the family. The faded print was gently colour-corrected and sharpened, with no details altered.
At a reception, with Moshe Dayan
Mordechai Gazit with Shimon Peres at an official dinner, as one of the guests gives a speech. Identification by the family.
At an official dinner, with Shimon Peres
Select a photograph to see it large, with its full caption.
Also view the AI-restored version
An AI-enhanced version made from the photograph above. Fine details may differ; the original remains available for comparison.
In a 1981 interview, former US ambassador to Israel Walworth Barbour called Gazit “a very good friend of mine”. He recalled dinner at Gazit’s home, where they revisited Barbour’s old diplomatic telegrams as part of Gazit’s book research. He told it with amusement: a moment of friendship and shared curiosity.Testimony
JFK Library, Sheldon M. Stern, 22 May 1981, transcript pp. 22–23. The dinner’s precise date and location are unspecified.
Through his grandson’s eyes
Three siblings, one family story
Sarah was Mordechai’s older sister; Shlomo was his younger brother. The photograph brings the three siblings together. His grandson’s words below return to the questions he never had time to ask.
From right to left: Shlomo Gazit, Sarah Angel and Mordechai Gazit. Photograph and identification supplied by Dan-Eyal; his post credits an earlier sharing by Yoav Gazit, Shlomo’s son. Shown as supplied.
My grandfather died before I had managed to hear from him everything I wanted to hear: the whole story, all the moving details, every moment of deliberation, drama and decision.
From his grandson’s recollections supplied for this siteTranslated from the Hebrew supplied by his grandson
Those conversations can no longer take place. The letters, photographs and films remain, and can be read, seen and heard here.
The family’s remembrance lives on in his grandson’s name, which honours, in part, the pilot Dan Engel, Sarah’s son and Mordechai’s nephew.
Dan-Eyal Gazit · From a post marking the centenary of his grandfather’s birth, 2022
The family’s original Hebrew text, translated into English.
To mark Grandpa Motke’s hundredth birthday — had he been alive, he would have celebrated this moving occasion on 5 September — I managed to find a few more precious seconds of him on video, from among his various public activities.
In the photograph accompanying the post, you can see him smiling (!), sitting — as Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office — immediately to the left of Yitzhak Rabin (by then already Prime Minister, during his first term), in a discussion with the Dutch Foreign Minister.
The image accompanying the family remembrance: a frame from the 1975 newsreel, gently enhanced for sharpness. See the original frame
These are a few more small pieces of history, from my grandfather’s generation of giants, and above all from Grandpa himself. How sad that he is no longer with us to share and tell us about the full richness and variety of his significant contribution to the State of Israel, and the many roles he was privileged to fill in his lifetime.
If only he were still here, for one last embrace, with love and appreciation from us all.
Translated excerpts from the original Hebrew post supplied to the website. Links to the films and details of the documentation are collected under “His voice and presence”.
A promise to the next generation
The farewell to Grandpa Motke recalls an honest, kind and hardworking man. Alongside the pride in his public service and the sorrow of missing him is a promise: to pass his story on to the next generation.
I can promise you that your great-grandchildren will know who you were and what you did, and will be so proud of you, just as I am proud of you, and will remember you, as I will always remember you. Rest in peace.
From his grandson’s farewell to Grandpa Motke, translated from the original Hebrew supplied to this site
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