– Q –
QUESHET.See MOSSAD.– R –
RAPHAEL, SYLVIA (1937–2005).Raphael was born in Pretoria,
South Africa, to a non-Jewish mother and Jewish father, who, al-
though from an orthodox family, did not educate Sylvia in the Jewish
manner; formally she was non-Jewish. Yet despite her Christian up-
bringing, Sylvia always felt Jewish, and in 1963 she went to Israel as
a volunteer at Kibbutz Ramat-Hakovesh near Jerusalem. Soon she
was recruited to the Mossadfor an espionage mission. Her motive
was her predilection for action rather than idealism.
After building her cover story by living in Canada for a year as a
press photographer under the assumed name of Patricia Roxborough,
she began her espionage work. Almost all her spying activities re-
main a mystery. Nevertheless, it is known that Raphael spied suc-
cessfully in many Arab countries, including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria,
and especially Egypt, were she operated excellently on the eve of the
1967 Six-Day Warand through to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Dur-
ing the Six-Day War, she was living in Cairo, where she heard and
saw Israel Air Force combat aircraft flying overhead; she reportedly
could hardly conceal her joyful feelings.
Raphael took part in many of the Mossad’s top clandestine opera-
tions. The most notorious was the Lillehammer Affairin Norway in
which an innocent Moroccan waiter was mistakenly identified and
killed as the Palestinian terrorist Ali Hassan Salamehfor the latter’s
part in the 1972 Munich massacre. This was probably the first mur-
der in many years in this peaceful resort, which made it relatively easy
for the Norwegian police to trace the killers. Raphael together with
other members of the Mossad’s hit team were arrested. Even when her
connection to the Mossad was discovered, she still presented herself
as Canadian Patricia Roxborough. The linguistic expert who interro-
gated Raphael was convinced by her accent that she was an authentic
Canadian. This affair put an end to her legendary career as a Mossad
officer, since she was exposed under her assumed name.236 • QUESHET06-102 (04) Q-Z.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 236