BRAWER, MOSHE

BRAWER, MOSHE (1919– ), Israeli geographer, specializing in borders, cartography, and the Arab village. Brawer was born in Vienna in 1919 and immigrated to Israel in 1920   with his family. From 1934 to 1938 he studied teaching in the Mizrachi Teachers Seminar in Jerusalem. In 1938 he studied geography and geology at the University of London and in 1939–42 he studied geology and mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1945 he returned to the University of London, graduating in geography and geology in 1947. In 1950 he received his master's degree there in geography and in 1958 his Ph.D. In 1964 he joined the departments of geography at Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan Universities. In 1980–83 he was dean of the Faculty of Humanities in Tel Aviv University, and in 1989 he became professor emeritus in Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan Universities. During these years he was also visiting professor in universities all over the world. In addition to his academic positions, Brawer served on the editorial boards of Ha-Ẓofeh (1941–65) and the Palestine Post (1940–45). He was the editor of the geographical section of the Hebrew Encyclopedia from 1953 to 1973 and from 1963 to 1997 he served as geographical advisor to the Ministry of Education. In the 1980s and 1990s he served as a government adviser on internal and external borders. Brawer has hundreds of publications to his credit, including 19 books and atlases, among them Regional Geography Atlas of the Middle East (1964), University Atlas (1973), The Green Line: The Border of the West Bank (1980), and Israel's Borders – Past, Present and Future (1988). In 2002 he was awarded the Israel Prize for his contribution to the field of geography. The committee cited his efforts to disseminate geographical knowledge and apply it in public and political life. (Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)