(JTA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Dore Gold to serve as director general of the Foreign Ministry. Gold, who grew up in West Hartford and attended the Bess & Paul Sigel Hebrew Academy in Bloomfield, is a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who twice served as a foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu and is a close confidant of the prime minister. Gold formerly ran the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a conservative think tank from which he has taken a leave of absence. He replaces Nissim Ben-Shitrit, who was appointed by the previous foreign minister, Avigdor Liberman, to run the ministry.