JERUSALEM (JTA) — David Peleg, an Israeli historian and diplomat who served as director of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, has died.

Peleg, who served as Israel’s ambassador to Poland, died Nov. 27 in Israel at the age of 72 after a long illness.

Peleg was born in Jerusalem in 1942 to a family that was originally from Poland. He graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem after studying general history and the history of Islam.

Peleg served in Warsaw as Israel’s ambassador to Poland from 2004 to 2009, after postings beginning in 1965 in Lusaka, Atlanta, London, Washington, New York and Geneva.

Peleg was appointed director-general of the World Jewish Restitution Organization after leaving the Israeli Foreign Ministry in 2009.

Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress and also of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, praised the late Israeli diplomat as a “thoughtful and skilled professional who did not seek the limelight but instead fought tirelessly to secure a small measure of justice for the dispossessed victims of the Holocaust and their heirs.”

David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said in a statement that Peleg “was an Israeli patriot, proud of the country he represented and angered by the efforts to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state. He knew his nation was not perfect – what nation is? — but he witnessed first-hand the hypocrisy and double standards too often employed in the international community when it comes to Israel, and especially in the UN in New York and Geneva during the time he served in those two posts.”

Harris said he met Peleg 25 years ago, when Peleg served as Minister of Public Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

“He was a proud Jew, who felt a visceral connection to Jews everywhere, be it the large community in the United States or the remnant and rebuilding community in Poland, where he lived for five years as Israel’s envoy. He was a voice for strengthening the bonds of Jews worldwide, and in particular between Israel and the Diaspora. He helped keep alive the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust through his work as a diplomat and later at the WJRO,” he said.