Uri Avnery was born Helmut Ostermann in Beckum, Germany on September 10, 1923. With the rise of Nazism, he immigrated to British-mandate Palestine with his family in 1933. He became a journalist, politician, and peace activist who exposed national scandals and conferred with Yasir Arafat.
In the early 1950s, Avnery and Shalom Cohen bought the weekly newsmagazine HaOlam Hazeh and turned it into an independent publication at a time when party newspapers were the norm. Avnery sold the publication in 1989. He was elected to the Knesset in 1965 and served for 10 years. He wrote several books including In the Fields of Philistia 1948: A Battle Log and Optimistic. He wrote regular opinion pieces for the liberal newspaper Haaretz up until he was hospitalized after suffering a stroke. His last column was published on August 7, 2018. He died on August 20, 2018 at the age of 94.
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