Iddo Netanyahu (; born July 24, 1952) is an Israeli physician, author, and playwright. He is the younger brother of
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...
, the
Prime Minister of Israel
The prime minister of Israel (, Hebrew abbreviations, Hebrew abbreviation: ; , ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief executive of the Israel, State of Israel.
Israel is a parliamentary republic with a President of Isra ...
, and
Yonatan Netanyahu
Yonatan Netanyahu (; March 13, 1946 – July 4, 1976) was an Israeli military officer who commanded Sayeret Matkal during the Entebbe raid. The raid was launched in response to the 1976 hijacking of an international civilian passenger flight ...
, a highly decorated soldier who was killed leading the
Entebbe raid
The Entebbe raid, also known as the Operation Entebbe and officially codenamed Operation Thunderbolt (also retroactively codenamed Operation Yonatan), was a 1976 Israeli counter-terrorist mission in Uganda. It was launched in response to th ...
, a hostage rescue mission in 1976.
Biography
Iddo Netanyahu was born in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
, the son of Cela (née Segal; 1912–2000) and professor
Benzion Netanyahu (1910–2012), and spent part of his childhood in the United States living in
Cheltenham Township,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
where he attended elementary and middle school. His family later returned to Israel, and he attended high school in Jerusalem. After finishing high school, Netanyahu returned to the United States to study at his father's former workplace
Cornell University
Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
, but in 1973 he put a hold on his studies to fight for Israel in the
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states led by Egypt and S ...
.
Netanyahu served in
Sayeret Matkal
Sayeret Matkal () (formerly Unit 269 or Unit 262) (English: General Staff Reconnaissance Unit), is the special reconnaissance unit (''sayeret'') of Israel's General Staff (''matkal''). It is considered one of the premier special forces units of ...
from 1970 to 1973, Israel's top
special forces
Special forces or special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
unit, as did both his brothers. He later returned to Cornell University and finished his undergraduate degree. He went back to Israel and earned an
M.D.
A Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated MD, from the Latin ) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the ''MD'' denotes a professional degree of physician. This ge ...
from
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...
School of Medicine and did post-doctoral training at
Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, D.C., and
Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City. He works part-time as a
radiologist
Radiology ( ) is the medical specialty that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide treatment within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiation), but tod ...
, but dedicates most of his time to writing.
Since 2008, after writing several books, Netanyahu has been concentrating on playwriting. His plays have appeared worldwide, including off-Broadway in New York, Tel Aviv, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Tashkent, among other cities. His play ''Don Samuel Abravanel'' was awarded the President of Warsaw Prize in 2022.
Personal life
Netanyahu and his wife Dafna have two children.
Published works
*''The Rescuers'' – published in Hebrew, a collection of short stories.
*''Yoni's Last Battle: The Rescue at Entebbe, 1976'' (2002) – Later re-released as ''Entebbe: A Defining Moment in the War on Terrorism – The Jonathan Netanyahu Story'', published in Hebrew, English, Russian, Chinese, and Italian.
*''Itamar K.'' – published in Hebrew, Russian and Italian, a novel about music and life, ironic and poetic.
*''Sayeret Matkal at Entebbe'' – published in Hebrew, documents, and interviews about the raid.
*''A Happy End'' – published in Italian, drama, with the title "Un Lieto Fine," and in English by Playscripts, Inc.
Plays
*''A Happy End'' - a Jewish family living in Berlin, contemplating the meaning and consequences of the recent rise of the Nazis.
*''Worlds In Collision'' - a battle of the minds between
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
and
Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky (; rus, Иммануи́л Велико́вский, p=ɪmənʊˈil vʲɪlʲɪˈkofskʲɪj; 17 November 1979) was a Russian-American psychoanalyst, writer, and catastrophist. He is the author of several books offering Pseudohi ...
.
*''Meaning'' - the relationship between the renowned psychiatrist
Viktor Frankl
Viktor Emil Frankl (; 26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997)
was an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and The Holocaust, Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life's mean ...
and a patient of his, against the backdrop of the Holocaust.
*''The Muse'' - a comedy about today's intellectual and artistic trends.
*''Myth -'' the attempts of a widow to fight the falsifications about her late husband.
*''Don Samuel Abravanel -'' the legalistic murder of a Jewish leader in Medieval Spain and its consequences.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Netanyahu, Iddo
1952 births
Living people
Cornell University alumni
The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School alumni
Israeli expatriates in the United States
Israeli male dramatists and playwrights
Israeli Ashkenazi Jews
Israeli people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
Israeli people of Polish-Jewish descent
Israeli people of the Yom Kippur War
Jewish military personnel
Jewish physicians
Iddo
Writers from Jerusalem
Physicians from Jerusalem
Israeli radiologists