Joining the fledgling Mossad in 1962, he went on to serve as the head of the organization’s station in Iraqi Kurdistan, the last station chief in Tehran, and the head of the Mossad station in Beirut in 1983-1984. He then served as an adviser on counter-terrorism to prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, retiring in 1992. Tsafrir is the scion of a Kurdish Jewish family that made its way to then-Ottoman Palestine overland from Iraqi Kurdistan via Syria. On his mother’s side, he is of Moroccan Jewish heritage. His story reflects the enormous benefit Israel derived in its early decades from the presence of Jews hailing from Middle Eastern countries.
Their knowledge of the Arabic language and understanding of local cultures were crucial to the development of Israel’s clandestine, extensive and effective strategy in the region in its first decades. The effects and implications of that strategy in turn remain deeply relevant. A native of Tiberias, and now a sprightly 87-year-old living quietly in a suburb of Tel Aviv, Tsafrir recently sat down with the Magazine to reflect on some of the central aspects of his remarkable career.
