Arnon Soffer

Arnon Soffer was born on 24 December 1935 to Jacob and Chasia Soffer, both immigrants from Belarus, and grew up in Rishon LeZion. His father managed the Israel Electric Corporation in the southern region. His older brother, Menachem, was killed by a landmine at the end of the 1948 war.

Soffer was drawn to geography from childhood. At the Gymnasia Realit he and his classmates formed the first handball team in Rishon LeZion, under the Maccabi Rishon LeZion club, and as a young man he played for Israel's national handball team. During his military service in the Nahal Brigade he led field tours and was a member and counsellor at Kibbutz Tel Katzir.

He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning a bachelor's degree in geography and history in 1960, a master's degree in geography in 1964 and a doctorate in 1971. His master's thesis, on vineyards and the wine industry in Israel, was published as a monograph in 1967, and his doctorate examined the location of industry around Haifa Bay. He also took courses in town planning at the Technion and in 1972 went to the London School of Economics as a postdoctoral researcher.

In 1965, when Haifa's university institute was short of academics in the field, Soffer was asked to help found its geography department, and he began lecturing there before completing his doctorate. The institute became the University of Haifa, and in 1970 he was appointed head of the geography department. He became an associate professor in 1985, a full professor in 1988 and professor emeritus in 2005.

Over the years he held many senior roles at the university. From 1982 he chaired the Jewish-Arab Center and the Institute for the Study of the Middle East and was deputy chairman of the Center for National Security Studies, and in 1986 he became dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Mathematics. In 2004 he founded the Chaikin Chair in Geostrategy, funded by a bequest from a former student, and chaired it until 2016. It published position papers, advised senior decision makers and held conferences on national security questions with a geographic dimension.

Soffer taught at the IDF Command and Staff College from 1969 and lectured at the National Defense College from 1978, heading its research centre from 2007 to 2014. He also taught at the Israel Police command college and held visiting posts at universities including the University of London, the University of Utah and the United States Military Academy at West Point. After retiring in 2014 he continued to teach security personnel studying at the University of Haifa.

Soffer lived in Haifa and was married to Miriam Soffer. They had four children and, according to his English Wikipedia biography, eight grandchildren. In a 2023 interview he said he had been living with Parkinson's disease since 2016.

Arnon Soffer died in Haifa on 14 August 2026, aged 90. Some local reports gave his age as 91. No cause of death was reported. His death was reported by Ynet and by Haifa's Radio Haifa, which described him as a founder of the University of Haifa's geography department and an honoured citizen of the city. Haifa's mayor, Yona Yahav, called him a man of vast knowledge, sharp thinking and a clear voice. He was buried in the plot for honoured citizens of Haifa at the Sde Yehoshua cemetery.

Soffer was one of the most influential geographers in Israel's public life. His research on demography, water, Jewish-Arab relations, the periphery and the environment shaped debate on the country's future, and he took part in water talks with Syria and Lebanon and in the military delegation to the Oslo talks. He is widely credited with helping to shape the thinking behind Israel's separation policy and the 2005 disengagement from Gaza.

His views were controversial. Colleagues at the University of Haifa criticised his focus on the demographic threat, and his comments on Tel Aviv and on African asylum seekers drew strong pushback. Generations of Israeli military and police officers passed through his classes, and the Chaikin Chair in Geostrategy he founded passed to Professor Shaul Horev in 2016.