Novosađanin u vrtlogu istorije (povodom 90. rođendana Cvi Lokera)

Abstract

Ovde je prikazana biografija nekadašnjeg stanovnika Kraljevine Jugoslavije Cvi Lokera, cionističkog aktiviste, iseljenika u Palestinu 1939. godine, kasnije izraelskog diplomate i aktivnog člana Hitah-dut olej exJugoslavija (Udruženje Jevreja iz exJugoslavije).

Cvi Loker, a diplomat and historian was born in Novi Sad in 1915. He was an active Zionist and a professional secretary of the Council of Zionists of Yugoslavia for the region of Vojvodina, and also a journalist and editor of Judische Zeitung. After two years of law studies in Belgrade, he has been living in Israel since 1939. He continued his studies in Israel (the French language and literature) and received an M.A. degree in Jewish history. During WWII he joined the ranks of the Royal Yugoslav Army in the refuge and fought together with the British army in Africa. After the end of the war, until 1947, he worked as a journalist in Cairo and edited the magazine the World within the British Ministry for Information, Department of the Middle East. After his return to Jerusalem, he worked for the Jewish Agency, and since the establishment of the state of Israel, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tel Aviv. As a diplomat, he served in Geneva, Bucharest, Belgrade, Paris, in Madagascar and Mauritius, and in 1970 he was appointed chief of cabinet of the president of Israel - during the last year and a half of presidency of Zalman Shazar and at the beginning of the mandate of professor Efraim Kacir. He ended his diplomatic career as an Israeli Ambassador to Haiti. He worked tirelessly at the Yad Vashem memorial, in the Association of Immigrants from Yugoslavia, where he established the History Committee, and in the Eventov archives, which he is still in charge of. As a historian, he also studied the history of Sephardic Jews, the history of Yugoslav (especially Vojvodina) Jews, and has published a significant book on the history of Jews in the Caribbean.