Ephraim Kleiman was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1931 and immigrated to Eretz Yisrael (Mandatory Palestine) with his parents in 1939. He earned a bachelor's degree in economics and statistics from the Hebrew University and a Ph.D. in economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he received his doctorate in 1958. He served as a senior researcher at the Falk Institute from 1958 to 1961. In 1963 he joined the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University and served as its Head from 1987 to 1990. Kleiman was a senior economic advisor to the Israeli delegation to the negotiations with the PLO, which led to the Paris Agreement of 1994, aimed at regulating the economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accords.

His primary research interests included: conceptual and empirical aspects of colonialism and international trade; the Israeli economy, focusing on the nature of the country’s economic regime and its changes over time, and on indexing arrangements and foreign exchange policies; the development of economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority; economic thought in Jewish law, concentrating on the Talmud.

Ephraim Kleiman passed away in 2022. In 2024, the Israeli Economic History Association established an award for an outstanding book in economic history, named in his memory and facilitated by by his family’s generous donation. by his family’s generous donation.