Aliza Magen-Halevi

Aliza Magen-Halevi (born 1937) is an Israeli intelligence officer. Magen-Halevi became the highest-ranking woman in the history of the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency, when she served as the agency's deputy director from 1997 to 1999 under Shabtai Shavit, Danny Yatom, and Efraim Halevy.

Biography

Aliza Magen was born in 1937 and grew up in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem. In the 1960s, she was sent to Salzburg, Austria, to recruit a German scientist who was working for Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser. She later worked at the Mossad station in Germany.

Magen-Halevi joined the Mossad in 1958 as a 22 or 23 year old. According to Magen-Halevi, her reports attracted the attention of then-director Isser Harel. Harel assigned Magen-Halevi and Mossad officer Yehudit Nessyahu to locate Yossele Schumacher, who had been abducted by his Haredi Orthodox Jewish grandparents. Magen-Halevi convinced Ruth Ben David, who had smuggled Schumacher out of Israel, to reveal Schumacher's location. Later in her career, she was involved in Operation Wrath of God, the Mossad's retaliation campaign after the 1972 Munich massacre.

Magen-Halevi was appointed deputy director in 1997 and served under directors Shabtai Shavit and Danny Yatom. She was publicly identified by the first letter of her name in a profile run by Yediot Ahronot as part of Israel's newspaper wars of the 1990s. She was asked to stay on as deputy director when Efraim Halevy was appointed director in March 1998. She retired in 1999.