Shevah Weiss
Shevah Weiss, is an Israeli political scientist and former politician.Biography
Weiss was born in Borysław, Poland into a Polish Jewish family to Gienia and Meir Wolf Weiss. He was rescued by Ukrainians and Poles during the German occupation of Poland. As a Holocaust survivor, he migrated to Palestine in 1947. He graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a BA in International Relations in 1961, before doing an MA in political Science and contemporary Jewish studies and then a PhD. In 1975 he became a professor at the University of Haifa.
He served as a member of the board of the Haifa municipality between 1969 and 1981, when he was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Alignment. 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 Council. From 2001 to 2003, he served as an Israeli ambassador in Poland. On 4 January 2004, for his contribution to the cooperation between Poland and Israel, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski awarded him with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
Weiss speaks Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, Russian and English.
