Born in 1928, Chanan Rapaport holds a doctorate in Clinical Psychology. He completed his post-doctoral studies in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in the United States. Between 1965-82, he was General and Scientific Director of the Szold Institute - the National Institute for Research in the Behavioral Sciences. During those years he served Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Yitzchak Rabin as advisor for social issues and was psychological adviser and supervisor of research at the Ministry of Education and Culture. A deep interest in his family's history from about 1990 on led him to work closely with Dr. Paul Jacobi, the renowned expert in Jewish Genealogy. He then established the Center for the Study of the Rapaport Family and serves as its Director General. After the death of Dr. Jacobi in 1997, he established the Jacobi International Jewish Genealogical Center at the National and University Library in Jerusalem, which in 2004 merged with the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy.