Shevah Weiss is an Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i political scientist

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

 and former politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

.
Weiss was born on July 5, 1935 in Borysław

Boryslav

Boryslav is a city located on the Tysmenytsia River , in the Lviv Oblast of western Ukraine. The city is designated as a separate raion within the oblast....

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 (now in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

) in Polish Jewish family to Gienia and Meir Wolf Weiss. As a Holocaust survivor, he migrated to Palestine in 1947. He graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

 with a BA in International Relations in 1961, before doing an MA in political Science and contemporary Jewish studies and then a PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

. In 1975 he became a professor at the University of Haifa

University of Haifa

The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.The University of Haifa was founded in 1963 by Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, to operate under the academic auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

.

He served as a member of the board of the Haifa municipality between 1969 and 1981, when he was elected to the Knesset

Knesset

The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...

 as a member of the Alignment

Alignment (political party)

The Alignment was an alliance of the major left-wing parties in Israel between the 1960s and 1990s. It was established in 1965 as an alliance of Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda but was dissolved three years later when the two parties and Rafi formally merged into the Israeli Labor Party...

. Between 1988 and 1992, he served as a Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, and between 1992 and 1996 as Speaker. He lost his seat in the 1999 elections.

In 2000 he became a president of the Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....

 Council. From 2001 to 2003, he served as an Israeli ambassador in Poland. On January 4, 2004, for his contribution to the cooperation between Poland and Israel, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski

Aleksander Kwasniewski

Aleksander Kwaśniewski is a Polish politician who served as the President of Poland from 1995 to 2005. He was born in Białogard, and during communist rule he was active in the Socialist Union of Polish Students and was the Minister for Sport in the communist government in the 1980s...

 awarded him with the Grand Cross (1st class) of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

In 2009, he told the Jerusalem Post that he was disappointed by Pope Benedict XVI's speech at Yad Vashem.

Weiss speaks Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, Yiddish, Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

, Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 and English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

.

External links