Avner Avraham

so avner thank you so much for joining us on the show it's an honor to have you on thank you very much so tell us a little bit about yourself and of course your uh your experience uh in the israeli army give us a little bit about your your background okay so uh i retired six years ago from assad after 30 years wow yes and it was amazing time for me and you know in the mossad you enter as a single and then you retired as a divorce is that how it works because i spend more than 10 years in more than 40 different countries wow yes and today i'm i'm consulting spy movies in hollywood wow and i'm also a professional curator i make a spy exhibitions and and i'm lecturing all over the world and now with the shabbat show i'm happy to be part of this amazing uh program thank you thank you so tell us a little bit about you know the mossad is the most especially for the jewish world the most maybe the most fascinating thing that we all know is the mossad if you don't know what it is it's this incred everybody wants to be on it like everybody wants to get the call no it's it's filled with intrigue so share with us a little bit about what some of your experiences were in in sort of during your work that you can share that's not classified that you could share with us okay first of all of course if i tell you i have to kill you i think that most of us of course remember the james bond movies so i can tell you that it's not even similar to the real life okay uh because we are not so tall we are not so beautiful we are not pilot we cannot dance so well and we don't have so beautiful james bond pills now uh i would like to share with you one of the big secrets of the mossad is the fact that we are the jewish people we look different because we came from different places look at my look look at me i'm a dark-skinned my parents came from iraq 71 years ago okay they came from iraq and when i grew up in a family that we spoke hebrew and arabic so i have a perfect arabic now think about languages languages in the mossad are like weapons okay the fact that i can fly to let's say arab country and i can book a room in hotel it means good morning good evening um maybe this is the big secret of the mossad and this is the story of of the jewish people the fact that we will look different and when i was i was in the idf i became officer and after years i became major but i was a younger soldier and one day they told me that they are going to send me to lebanon now it wasn't big deal it was a 84 and all the soldiers they served in lebanon but they told me no you are going to fly by yourself with a helicopter they are going to take you from tel aviv from the mossad quarters you have to come without uniform without nothing with hebrew nothing related to israel 19 years old soldier okay and i'm coming and he took me with a small bus to haifa to um to the israeli air force base and from there with the helicopter after maybe maybe 15 minutes we landed north of berwich and in the dark think about mercedes coming someone gave me a gun someone else took for me the luggage i spent there almost uh a month with the mossad agents undercover one of the best time in my life and of course after i uh finished my military service um you know we said sometimes i after i released from the army i know it's it sounds like mistake but sometimes you it's it's released okay to because you know it's it's fought four years in the in the in the idf i was 22 years old but a year before the mossad decided that they want to check if i i can be a walk in the mossad and it took almost a year and two days after i retired or i finished my military service i started to work for the mossad and if you go to tel aviv to serona in the center of tel aviv sarona center now it's a it's a beautiful place with a lot of shops and restaurants but it used to be a camp a military camp and the mossad also got some few buildings there and i served in one of the buildings that belonged to the mossad and um yes so so i served for 28 years in the mossad and something amazing happened to me exactly 10 years ago okay it was a 50 years anniversary of the aichman's trial okay this year by the way it's exactly 60 years anniversary of the eichmann tribe april 11 and and i used to collect original objects original guns that took part in operations spy cameras original maps okay and i got a huge uh collection and from time to time it wasn't my job of course you know we don't make exhibitions the mossad but from time to time i used to put small exhibition in the mossad headquarters in the la in the main lobby of the building and i made a small exhibition about the capture of adolf eichmann with original past fake passports with the cameras with everything including israeli passports with the picture of eichmann because he he came to israel as a as a navigator dressed like an navigator uh so i made a small exhibition and one day benjamin netanyahu the prime minister he came to meet the chief of mossad and suddenly he saw the exhibit and they told you oh there is a very creative and crazy guy that is a huge collector of the mossad and and he made this exhibit so he asked the head of mossad if i can come to jerusalem to the parliament with this exhibit so after two weeks i i found myself in the parliament for one month it was a huge success for the first time the mossad making a spy exhibit interviews with the people from all over the world the cnn bbc and whatever and uh and then they decided to show this exhibit in the jewish museum in tel aviv what we call the diaspora museum or the better futsal again it was your success almost a year and then if you saw the spa museum in washington d.c so the owner of this spy museum is a is a great jewish guy from cleveland ohio uh mr moss he came he saw the exhibit and he told me i want you to come with this exhibit to the state wow now in the meantime the chief of mossad told me look afner you have only three years to retire why don't you build for the mossad the first museum the first spy museum so i was the one wow they sent me to the tel aviv university to be a professional curator it took me two years i made more than 30 different spy exhibitions and of course the first one was the the capture of adolf heisman but the second one was about entebbe and i know that you made interview with rami sherman he's a great guy he took part in the operation and just if we say something about operation and tabi most of the people don't know about the mossad role in this operation now when i made exhibit about this about the operation and tabby in the in rabbin center in tel aviv and of course the president perez came and shiva and the prime minister netanyahu and even the president of uganda came and even bill clinton came to see the exhibit so i remember that one of the great objects in the exhibit was it filling it filling that one of the passenger gave me a akiva laksa he used to used to fly a lot and he got a small trillion to travel with and he told me that when they met the selection between the jews and non-jews and the israelis and non-israelis and they moved all of them to the second room they asked him to open his handbag and they saw that fill in and they told him is it a communication system he said yes i communicate with god every every day not every day not every nothing saturday then and then he told me that all all the hostages prayed with this feeling i think it's a great story okay oh yeah and um by the way um there is a lot of small stories about him because he didn't touch the the meat that the eugenian gave to the hostages because it's not it's not kosher so he was maybe one of the only people that didn't get sick or diarrhea one that helped everybody so anyway uh it was about interview but if we go back to to eichmann we made a huge exhibition about like a six thousand square feet about the capture of adolf hickman but in israel it's enough to say the capture of ahmad but when you come to the state you have to start from the beginning you have to talk about the nazis and the war and the final solution and the camps and even after the war what happened with the nazis most of them escaped to south america and argentina of course and at the end of the day the the last part of the exhibit was a very very great idea to make interviews with the holocaust survivors that came by themselves to the state and now they have huge families okay let me ask you a question because as you're talking my head is spinning yeah um i want to go back to what you said earlier a little bit and then and then build on what you're saying which is fascinating and i think we'd love to see this exhibit you know you you mentioned that you were 19 years old and they send you to beirut north of bay road that place is close to me because my parents come from syria through beirut so my father my father's side so when when you say they dropped me in beirut at 19 and that was the greatest time what dawns in my head immediately is how are you able to deal with the pressure aren't you alone in a enemy country when you go around for the mossad for for all the years that you were there and you're alone in a hotel room or you're in get doing whatever you're doing in your job right your job doesn't sit i don't think by the pool right you were doing what's going on in your mind is it fear is it like how do you get through the fact that you're alone basically in enemy territory doing work that's putting you at risk constantly how does that how does how does that work well i think that i didn't have any fear because i was too stupid and young [Laughter] and and i stayed in a in a very fancy villa okay undercover and we got the special connection by the way after years we found out that it was not so good connection with them but we got this special connection a secret connections with the local christian we supported them and we helped them and so that's why i was a guest of the local seekers service okay and yes it was it was uh it was amazing it was a great time for me and and and when when you're involved in all the years that you were doing you know your work um to the rest of the world it's so mysterious uh yes we have we we always like you know i've seen the iceman movies 50 times like i've seen ant like all all we have is the movies and in the movies it's always dramatic and it's always and in this process um how does the mossad like i guess you can't share this all the secrets obviously but to us it's it's shocking how you guys know everything you know i'm saying like how does that happen that you know you're right now we're right now living at a time that we can almost assume that the mossad is very helpful in iran we can almost assume that what's taking place in gaza isn't because they happen to know where everything is like anytime something happens in israel seems to have an advantage we always assume that there was this enormous amount of pre-work that was done by spies what's the process how does it work do you do you whatever you can share i mean obviously okay so first of all uh before the kov 19 i traveled in the stage for four years and i was in the biggest holocaust museums and i was for example in manhattan in the jewish heritage museum for half a year and and we were also in the in new orleans in the world war ii national museum by the way this shirt is from there it's a lovely shirt with planes a lot of plants it's a new orleans shirt i can see it so it was it was in a different nine big uh [Music] museums and i must share with you something about syria because unfortunately i think it was last two weeks ago the chief rabbi of damascus rabbi hamra passed away and i made an exhibition about how the mossad smuggled the jews from from syria and i met him i met him and i know he got family also in in in new york and i remember that when i met my research first of all the mossad used to smudge a smuggle the jewish families every friday evening friday evening the syrian knew that the uh the jewish community don't do anything they stay at home so they asked them to leave everything everything you cannot take with you anything you live the food you leave everything and you take the core of the family okay the father the mother the kids and you disappear the most agent coming and take you okay and they they smuggle them through the border with the turkey okay it's a long story for for for for the next time but there is a lot of uh stories that i can i can share with you but for example if if we talk about the capture of adolf eichmann it was a love story between a half jewish girl and eichmann's son she grew up in a german family her mom was a gem with a what where was a christian but her father was half christian and half jewry he was a holocaust survivor wow okay now she went to a german film festival and she met a guy and she started dating with him and he told her my name is nicholas achman the reason is because eichmann escaped on 1950 he came with the fake passport by the way he got his fake passport for from the vatican and the family joined him after two years and they decided to keep the name ahmad and you know that during the war ahmad said we have to kill first the jewish kids because this is the sec the next generation we have to kill the kids before and he got and the fact that we could capture him was because of his son and his son decided to carry the name eichmann wow and um it's it's it's a it's a very nice story by the way if you if you saw in netflix the operation finale movie uh this is one of the movies that i was a mossad consultant wow and in every movie by the way i'm playing cameo so you can try to find me okay in two different scenes and i'm also the owner of a bar you will see in hebrew arnold's bar now uh it was important for me uh it was a great time to to be in argentina for two months with the with the sir ben kingsley and oscar isaac and leo roz and all the famous actors but it was important for me uh to to take care about the credibility of the movie right for example for example they they asked me you know for the holocaust holocaust survivor they they asked me for the number and they asked me just to make a random number let's say no way we are going to use a real number yeah and they told me we need a contract for this okay i will bring you a contract from the family so the the number that you see in the movie is a real number related to a holocaust survivor from hungary wow as you know there is a big connection between ahmad and the the jewish community in hungary he was the response he was responsible of killing most of the jewish community in in the hungary and in the actual eichmann story you know the actual story that took place yes how long did it take for the for the whole story to develop when they sent most when the mossad sent its agents down what what were they doing how did it how long was that operation and usually you know in netflix it takes less than two hours so i tell you uh i'm sure you remember after september 11 that uh many people saw bin laden every day i believe that the cia got more than 100 messages from all over the world that someone saw bin laden right i think until today there is people that send the message that they saw bin laden walking in the street right now think about the mossad thousands of information from all over the world about nazis you cannot handle this you cannot send agent to check all this information so our story the love story was three years before on on the 57 three years before the capture and then the father decided to send a letter to germany to the to the jewish prosecutor and the jewish prosecutor fritz bauer forward this to israel and he came to israel with this information but the mossad didn't send a real agent they asked a policeman a high-rank officer that came to argentina for a conference if he can go to the neighborhood and check the address and then he said no no way it's a poor neighborhood i don't believe eichmann is there only after three years the mossad sent our only by himself and he came with the leica camera and he needed to develop the picture in a regular photoshop by the way it's very funny you know you send a spy and you cannot develop the picture and try to explain to the young generation what does it mean in the picture and why we need to wait two weeks and why after two weeks and we lost all the pictures so uh so so this agent came back with the pictures of aahman and the mossad may compare the shape of the ear of the left ear they took pictures from the wall from the world war ii and the in the new pictures that are only brought with him to israel and they found that it's the same person wow and then they decided to send all the 11 agents and i must say something about the 11 agents in the movie when we shot the scene think about passengers coming from from the airport so they all have a luggage okay so they they made all of them coming with air france with the tag of air france to each one of their suitcases and i told the director look it doesn't make sense that you send all of them in the same day in the same flight and all of them coming with the air france i mean i'm sure you maybe you want a discount but you don't send all the agent together it doesn't make sense and you know why because the agents came from different places they grew up in berlin and romania and uh austria and one one of them grew up in israel so this is the story of the jewish people and i really think about this yeah so they told me it's too late we don't have tax for the i told them no problem let's go to ebay there is people that collect these tags and they told me no but it will take time to buy it i told them you don't have to buy just print it out and let's produce a fake old-fashioned tax to the suitcases wow it's this is so fascinating and and i thank you so much for it and there's so much more to talk about but i want to be respectful for your time and i hope we get to stay in touch and and we get to have you back on again we thank you for your service for all these years in ways that no one will ever know and in many ways that's the highest level of service they say the highest thing that you can do is be able to do something good for someone else and nobody knows so much of your life are things that no one will ever really know and so we we thank you we're honored that you're on and we thank you for what you've done and what you do for the jewish people thank you very much and big love from israel thank you okay that was wonderful thank you so much thank you how do we stay in touch with you if that's okay we'd love to send you what we're doing okay i will see you always love and by the way he's my son perfect we'll talk we'll go through we'll ask less enough for how to get in touch with you and we'll we'd love to do more things yes i have i have a lot of things let me show you something okay sure do you know this hat it looks very familiar yeah this is a typical old israeli right and we call it a temple okay okay now this funny hat his original hat that took part in operation and tabe okay and the reason is because because rami and all the other soldiers from the commando unit came dressed like ugandan army oh wow okay now they couldn't recognize each other and they thought that maybe they will see a real ugandan soldier and they can kill each other so they decided to use this funny head when they start the operation everybody and and if you ask the hostages they will tell you that they saw angels that's the reason that this is wow beautiful oh great this is and the second story is this this is the mishnayot book okay and um one day uh i was uh i went to a restaurant and when i get back from the restaurant i saw this in the street and i said no way this holy book will be in the street you know i'm going to take it to the synagogue to ganesha or whatever and i took it home and it was in my place for a while and then i got the email from hollywood abner when you are coming to argentina please can you bring with us with you a torah book because we need it to the courtroom the ahman's courtroom we need a tour book wow so the witnesses can can use it so i flew with this book and i came to the set and it's part of the movie wow it's good it's a part of my collection great this is great wonderful okay thank you so much looking forward to being in touch and we thank you for all that you do send a sender regards to north because he's telling that it was uh he's all the time you know he's the manager i don't want to i'm his father but i don't want to do you know you know father and son i got it tell him it was good okay thank you very much thank you have a great day looking forward to it thank you thanks so much for watching for more content like and subscribe and be sure to tune in live every thursday at 8 pm eastern at the shabacho.com or right here on youtube [Music] you