Georg Josephthal

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Giora Josephthal (1959)

Georg Josephthal (in Palestine: Giora Yoseftal ; Hebrew גיורא יוספטל, * August 9, 1912 in Nuremberg ; † August 22, 1962 in Lucerne ) was a Zionist politician and Israeli statesman.

Life

He was the youngest of four sons and came from a liberal Jewish family that had been in Middle Franconia since the 17th century at the latest . His father was Paul Josephthal (* 1869 in Nuremberg, † 1943 in Tel Aviv , general director of the metal goods factory. Max Dannhorn AG, Nuremberg), his grandfather the lawyer Gustav Josephthal .

At the age of 17 he joined the Zionist movement. He came from the Hechaluz youth movement and began as a social worker in Munich with retraining young Jews for the settlement in Palestine. After the transfer of power to Adolf Hitler , he became chairman of the youth department of the Jewish communities in Bavaria in 1933, director of the children's and youth aliyah in Berlin in 1934, and general secretary of the Hechaluz organization in Germany in 1936.

He had been in Palestine and London since 1938 , founded Kibbutz Gal'ed in Palestine with his wife and other German Jews , was a Haganah fighter, served in the British Army from 1943–1945 , and headed the Department for the Integration of Immigrants from 1945–1956 the Jewish Agency , 1952 head of the Israeli delegation in the reparation negotiations with Germany, 1956-1959 general secretary of the Mapai (Workers' Party).

Senta and Giora Josephthal 1954

From 1959 he was a member of the Knesset , 1960/1961 Minister of Labor in Ben Gurion's cabinet , and from 1961 until his death Minister for Housing and Development.

He died in the villa of his older brother, who had invited him to Switzerland to recover from his third heart attack. His body was transferred to Jerusalem and buried in Kibbutz Gal'ed.

Giora Josephthal had been married since 1936 to Senta Josephthal, née Punfud (1912-2007), who herself became a leading member of the Histadrut and - at the express invitation of Ben Gurion - had become a member of the Knesset in 1955.

literature

  • Siegmund Kaznelson (ed.): Jews in the German cultural area . Berlin 1962, p. 1000
  • John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 336.
  • Walter Tetzlaff: 2000 short biographies of important German Jews of the 20th century. Askania, Lindhorst 1982, ISBN 3-921730-10-4 , p. 159.

Web links

Commons : Georg Josephthal  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jim G. Tobias: Golda Meir's Frankish friend
personal data
SURNAME Josephthal, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Josephthal, Giora
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH 22nd August 1962
Place of death Lucerne