Druze Professor Named Israel’s New Zealand Envoy
A Druze professor was appointed Israel’s chief diplomat in New Zealand.
Hebrew Literature Professor Naim Araidi was appointed to the post by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Yediot Acharonot reported.
“After years of representing the State of Israel unofficially, it would be a great privilege for me to do so in an official capacity and show Israel’s beautiful side, as well as the coexistence that despite all the hardships can only be maintained in a true democracy,” the newspaper reported Araidi as saying.
Born in Kfar Marrar in the Galilee, the 62-year-old teaches at Haifa University and Bar-Ilan University and won the Prime Minister’s Award for Hebrew Literature in 2008. He received his doctorate in Hebrew literature from Bar-Ilan. His poems have been published in more than a dozen languages.
Lieberman said Araidi’s appointment “represents the beautiful face of Israel, in which a talented person, irrespective of religion or sector – can reach the highest places on merit, and be an inspiration for all Israelis.”
“I am convinced that he will honor the State of Israel as an ambassador as he did as a writer,” he added.
Araidi is expected to replace Shemi Tzur later this year. Tzur was appointed in 2009, the first Israeli diplomat in New Zealand since 2002, when Israel’s embassy in Wellington was closed as part of global cost-cutting measures by Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
There are about 7,000 Jews in New Zealand, mainly in Auckland and Wellington.
Araidi is not Israel’s first Druze ambassador – Walid Mansour was posted to Vietnam and Reda Mansour served in Ecuador.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30