Six of the Israel Embassy’s principal diplomats, including two of its three officials with the rank of minister, are leaving Washington for new assignments, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today. In addition, two of the Embassy’s eight counsel-generals in the United States–those in San Francisco and Atlanta–are due for replacement by the end of this year.
Embassy officials told the JTA these were routine transfers at the end of normal tours of duty. Several of the diplomats, however, have served longer than the usual three-year span. “The changes reflect smooth transition of normal changes of personnel,” the JTA was informed. “There is hardly a ripple of policy change.”
Career diplomat Simcha Dinitz replaced Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin early in March after the latter had been in the post for five years but it was emphasized to the JTA that the shifts currently being made have no connection with the ambassadorial assignment to Dinitz by Premier Golda Meir.
The ministers departing are Avner Idan and information director Zvi Brosh. Idan who is leaving this week for Jerusalem, is expected to be appointed Israeli ambassador to Sweden. In Washington since June 1971, he had been charge d’affaire of the Embassy during the absences of the Ambassador. Idan came here from the post of Minister of the Embassy in Bonn. His successor is Mordechai Shalev, who is now in Washington. Shalev came here from the position of director of the Israel Foreign Ministry’s African Affairs Department. He previously served as Counsel-General in Los Angeles and subsequently as Ambassador to Ghana.
Brosh, who is the Minister of Information, is returning to Jerusalem in mid-July for a senior post in the Foreign Ministry. He arrived in Washington in July 1970 after four years as Ambassador to Burma and Ceylon. Previously he was press counselor at the Mission in West Germany. In his capacity as director of the Embassy’s public affairs. Brosh travelled widely to all parts of the U.S. He made hundreds of speeches of a great variety of forums. His replacement is Moshe Arad, who until now was deputy to the Counsel General in New York. Arad was posted to New York last Sept. after four years as Press Counselor in London.
Economic Minister Ze’ev Sher, whose office is in New York, is continuing in his post. He arrived in the U.S. a year ago.
Political Counselor Zvi Rafiah arrived this week to replace Counselor Amos Eiran, who left the post last fall. Rafiah was with the Foreign Ministry’s research department in Jerusalem. Previously he was with the Legation in Ankara. Eiran had been on loan from the Histadrut. He is now managing director of “Miztachin,” the Histadrut pension fund.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
