Anna Azari

Who is Anna Azari?

Anna Azari is an Israeli diplomat and former Ambassador of Israel to Russia. She was born in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1959 and immigrated to Israel with her family in 1972. Azari attended University of Haifa where she earned a bachelor’s degree in history and English literature and a master’s in political science. She also garnered a Special Programme in Russian Studies from Hebrew University and graduated from the National Security College.

She has been in the Israeli Foreign Ministry since the 1980s and lived in San Francisco from 1989 to 1992, where she served as consulate general of Israel to the Pacific Northwest. Azari held the position of first secretary for the Embassy of Israel in Moscow from 1995 to 1997. Beginning in 1999, she served as the Ambassador of Israel to both Ukraine and Moldova and was described by the Ukrainian press as one of the country's most popular foreign diplomats before she left the post in 2003.

On the day of the September 11 attacks, Azari was meeting with a delegation of physicians from Chicago and Atlanta-based Jewish Healthcare International to discuss their collaborative work with Ukrainian health professionals.