Amnon Jacont

Amnon Jackont (Hebrew: אמנון ז'קונט; born 1948 in Ramat Gan) is an Israeli author of thrillers, a historian and a literary editor.

Jackont was allowed to postpone his military service for law studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During the summer breaks he would serve in the military, but was injured and became disabled. He stopped his studies and became a successful businessman, active in real estate, investments and insurance. From 1980 he writes next to his business endeavours. Almost all his books became bestsellers. From 1988 he worked as a literary editor for the Keter Publishing House.

In 1997 Jackont ceased his business activities to concentrate on his own writing and editing and on his history studies at the Tel Aviv University. After completing his masters (2002), he has completed his PhD degree at the same university (2006).

Since 2002 he is also active in business and relationship counseling, in workshops and TV programs. Some of these are conducted with his wife, radio show hostess Varda Rasiel-Jackont. Amnon and Varda Jackont live in Tel Aviv.

Trojan horse exposure

In 2005, Jackont helped expose an industrial espionage ring involving executives at several major Israeli corporations. During the previous year, he had noticed excerpts from an unpublished manuscript appearing in internet forums, followed by a series of harsh reviews once the book was actually published. He also determined that his email was being read and manipulated by someone else.

When a computer technician found that the problem was a Trojan horse program on his computer, Jackont reported the matter to police. The person responsible was eventually identified as Michael Haephrati, the ex-husband of Varda's daughter from a previous marriage, who had apparently written the Trojan horse. The same program was identified as having been used by three private detective agencies to collect information from the espionage victims on behalf of their competitors.

Bibliography

References

• Amon Jackont at the Lexicon for New Israeli Literature
• Amonon Jackont at the Institute for translated Israeli literary authors