Personal info
Known for
Ultimate Talent
Gender
Male
Birthday
30 January
Location
Sofia City Province, Bulgaria
Edit pageMichael Bar-Zohar
Biography
Michael Bar-Zohar (born 30 January 1938) is an Israeli historian, novelist, and politician. He was a member of the Knesset on behalf of the Alignment and Labor Party in the 1980s and early '90s.
In 1965 Bar-Zohar won the Sokolov Award for his achievements as a journalist.[citation needed] He published several books, including biographies of David Ben-Gurion and Shimon Peres, several books about the Israeli security organizations, and an account of the rescue of Bulgarian Jews from the Nazis in World War II.
Bar-Zohar's book Mossad: The Great Operations (המוסד - המבצעים הגדולים), published in 2010 with Nissim Mishal, was the subject of an investigation by the newspaper Haaretz.\ According to the report, large parts of the book were copied from books and articles of journalist Ronen Bergman without acknowledgment.
It even used fictitious names for an intelligence unit and an intelligence officer that Bergman had invented.\ Bar-Zohar and Mishal admitted to Haaretz that they had followed Bergman closely, but said it was to avoid trouble from the Israeli Military Censor. The three authors reached an agreement that included financial compensation for Bergman.
Bergman later claimed that Bar-Zohar and Mishal had violated the agreement, and he wrote to foreign publishers in an attempt to prevent the publication of the international edition of Bar-Zohar and Mishal's book.
In August 2013, Bar-Zohar and Mishal responded with a libel suit against Bergman. In November 2013, Bergman initiated a lawsuit against Bar-Zohar and Mishal, alleging plagiarism, intellectual property theft, defamation of character, and more.
