Zeev Shek

Zeev Shek, (May 13, 1920; - October 2, 1978, Rome,

Biography According to his son Daniel, Zeev grew up in a large religious family.

Shek met his wife, Alisa Ehrmann-Shek, in Prague as part of the Zionist youth movement and both were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. When his mother was sent to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in the gas chamber, he volunteered to go with her.

Hospitalized and in a coma after liberation, Zeev woke up in an American hospital, he heard English and thought he died and went to the British mandate in heaven. Son Daniel Shek is also a diplomat. Haaretz reported Shek was one of the founders of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Career Before serving as Ambassador to Italy, Shek was the head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Western European division so he had "overseen Israel's protracted negotiations for treaty status with the European community." He also served as Ambassador to Austria and Ambassador to the UN in Vienna and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.