| Zalman Shoval | |
|---|---|
| Date of birth | 28 April 1930 |
| Place of birth | Free City of Danzig |
| Year of aliyah | 1938 |
| Knessets | 7th, 8th, 9th, 12th |
| Party | Likud |
| Former parties | National List, Rafi - National List, Telem |
Zalman Shoval (Hebrew: זלמן שובל, born 28 April 1930) is an Israeli politician and diplomat. He was the Israeli ambassador to the United States in the years 1990-1993 and 1998–2000, and an active member of the Knesset in the Rafi party of Ben Gurion, the Statal List, and the Likud party.
Shoval was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), then home to a large Jewish community, as the son of a Jewish family originating in Eastern Europe. His father was born in Latvia. They immmigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1938. Shoval attended the "Geula" high school in Tel Aviv before studying for a BA at UC Berkeley, an MA at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and then a PhD (by correspondence) in international studies.
Between 1955 and 1957 he worked in the Ministry Foreign Affairs, after which he became involved in finance, twice serving as chairman of the Bankers Association Council.
Shoval joined David Ben-Gurion when he left to found Rafi in 1965, and then again when Ben-Gurion founded the National List in 1969. In the elections that year he narrowly missed out on being elected to the Knesset - Shoval was placed fifth on the party's list, but it won only four seats. However, when Ben-Gurion resigned from the Knesset in May 1970, Shoval took his place.
Shortly before the 1973 elections, the National List joined other groups to form the Likud, and Shoval was returned to the Knesset as a Likud MK. Re-elected in 1977, he was responsible for information in Foreign Affairs Ministry as a deputy to Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan.
In January 1981 Shoval and two other Likud MKs (Yigal Hurvitz and Yitzhak Peretz) broke away from the party to form Telem with Moshe Dayan. However, in the 1981 elections Telem won only two mandates, and Shoval lost his seat.
In 1984 Hurvitz and Shoval formed Ometz. Whilst he missed out on election to the Knesset in that year's elections, Ometz merged back into Likud in 1986, and in 1988 Shoval was elected back into the Knesset as a Likud MK.
He resigned from the Knesset in October 1990 in order to become Israeli Ambassador to the United States, a post he held until 1993, and again between 1998 and 2000.
In the late 1990s, he partnered up with Israeli businessperson Shlomo Grofman. Together, they established Faire Fund (First American Israeli Real Estate Fund) [1] and Shoval Grofman Real Estate Limited.
Today Shoval is member of the International Board of Governors of the Ariel University Center of Samaria.
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