INDUCTION CLASS OF 2023

Avivi was born in Kermanshah, Iran. While still an infant, his family moved to Tel Aviv in British Mandate Palestine. Always one to challenge oppression even as a child, he would regularly clash with British troops before a brief stint fighting with the Palmach. In his late teens, he set out to travel the world, mainly paying for his passage by working on fishing boats. In 1952, Avivi returned to what was by then Israel from Northern Africa and quietly settled amongst the remains of a coastal village known as Achziv.

Avivi would serve as the area’s only permanent resident for years. Living in a home he built himself, he earned money by selling fish, working as a photographer, and hosting the occasional guest to the shore. This latter method began to occur more often, leading to Avivi building a number of small wooden cabins where people could stay in the late 1950’s, resulting in the emergence of Achziv as a popular destination for young people.

For years, Avivi and authorities clashed over his occupation of the area, with numerous attempts to evict of drive away he and his new wife, Rina, occurring in the late 50’s and 60’s. These efforts were aimed at establishing first a military base, and then a national park. These attempts came to a head when the Israelis erected a fence in 1971, butting off access to the beach for the couple. In protest they ripped up their Israeli passports and declared the small area a new and sovereign nation called Akhzivland, with Eli initially serving as an untitled dictator.

These actions led Israel to arrest the couple and charge them with “creating a country without permission.” Given that Isreal had no such statute on the law books, a judge quickly threw out the charges. Shortly thereafter, the Israeli government attempted to reconcile by offering Avivi a 99-year lease of the site. Given that the newly enacted Akhzivlandi constitution declares “the President is elected by his own vote,” Avivi became the President of the fledgling nation.

Avivi was consequently hailed as a folk hero and created a wave of interest in traveling to the new country, with Akhzivland attracting poets, musicians, and other free thinkers. In 1972, Avivi hosted a rock festival that proved so popular it held up traffic for over 100 kilometers.

Despite rocky beginnings, Akhzivland came to enjoy a good relationship with the nation it was an enclave of, making it one of the few micronations who can make such a claim. Although it has never been formally recognized by the government of Israel, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism has promoted the three-acre nation, calling it “the personal fiefdom of Eli Avivi.”

Although Eli Avivi died of pneumonia in 2018, his legacy lives on. Visitors can still stay in Akhzivland and visit its museum. Avivi was quoted as having said that his was the only Middle Eastern nation to have never gone to war, with Avivi having lived his life as a paragon of peace in the world, and the epitome of the rebellious micronational spirit longing for a better world.