Yitzchak Ben Aharon

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Yitzchak Ben Aharon, 1951

Yitzchak Ben Aharon ( Hebrew יצחק בן אהרון, * July 17, 1906 as Yitzhak Nussenbaum in Suczawa District , Bukowina ; † May 19, 2006 in Givat Chaim , Israel ) was an Israeli trade union official and politician ( Mapam , Achdut haAwoda , Labor Party ). He was a member of the Knesset from 1949 to 1977 and Minister of Transport from 1959 to 1962.

Life

He attended a grammar school in Chernivtsi , at the age of 14 he joined the socialist-Zionist youth movement HaSchomer HaTzair . He studied at the German University of Politics in Berlin before becoming head of HaSchomer HaTzair in Romania. In 1928 he emigrated to Palestine, traveling by land, partly on foot and partly on a donkey. He then worked on the establishment of the kibbutz Givat Chaim ( Hebrew גִּבְעַת חַיִּים) with Hadera , where he lived for the rest of his life. As a representative (Schaliach) of the pioneer organization HeChalutz , he went to Germany in 1935 to prepare Jews for emigration to Palestine. But he was arrested and expelled.

During the Second World War Ben Aharon fought in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army , where he rose to the rank of major. In Greece he was taken prisoner by Germans in 1941 . Most recently he was imprisoned in Oflag 79 near Braunschweig until he was liberated by units of the 30th US Infantry Division on April 12, 1945 . On his return to Palestine, he was arrested by the British mandate authorities on the so-called Black Sabbath in June 1946 as part of Operation Agatha . After the split in Kibbutz Givat Chaim he was a citizen of Givat Chaim (Meuchad) ( Hebrew גבעת חיים (מאוחד)), which belonged to the left kibbutz movement Kibbutz HaMeuchad .

Ben Aharon's first wife Miriam, with whom he had two sons, died in 1993. At the age of 93, Ben Aharon married the film director Bilha Rubin.

Politician and union official

From 1932 to 1938, Ben Aharon was secretary of the Tel Aviv Labor Council . Then he was secretary of the socialist-Zionist party Mapai founded by David Ben-Gurion until 1939 . He left this and in 1946 joined the left-wing split-off Achdut haAwoda , which in 1948 merged into the Marxist-oriented Mapam .

Ben Aharon in a panel discussion (1969)

Ben Aharon was elected to the first Knesset in 1949. He was a member of parliament for eight legislative terms until 1977. When the Mapam split in 1954, he belonged to the moderate wing, which revived the Achdut haAwoda - Poalei Tzion . This belonged to the HaMa'arach alliance from 1965 and merged with Mapai in 1968 in the united labor party Avoda . Ben-Aharon was Israeli Minister of Transport from December 17, 1959 to May 28, 1962 in the cabinets of Ben-Gurion VII and VIII . He resigned because of differences over the government's economic policy.

From 1969 to 1973 he headed the trade union federation Histadrut , which during this time accepted Arab Israelis as members for the first time . He criticized his party colleague, then Prime Minister Golda Meir , for being too close to capitalists. Before the 1973 Yom Kippur War , he advocated the return of the West Bank territories occupied in 1967 , which earned him severe criticism in the press and in his own party. He commented on the change of government from the Labor Party to the right-wing Likud in 1977 with the words: "If this is the will of the people, the people should be replaced."

publicist

He was the author of several books and articles. His autobiography was published in 1947 under the title Listen, gentile! The Story of a Life at Staples Press Ltd. in London .

Awards

  • 1995: Ben-Aharon received the Israel Prize for his special contribution to society and the State of Israel.
  • 2005: In the compilation of the 200 most popular Israelis by Ynet , Ben-Aharon was voted 130th.

Web links

Commons : Jitzchak Ben Aharon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, 99; Kibbutznik Co-Founded Israel's Labor Party . Obituary in the Los Angeles Times . Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  2. ↑ a b c Dennis Hevesi: Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, Kibbutz Founder, Dies at 99. In: The New York Times , June 19, 2006.
  3. ↑ Carsten Teichert: Chasak! Zionism in National Socialist Germany 1933–1938. Elen-Verlag, 2000, p. 265.
  4. ↑ Yitzchak Ben Aharon: Listen, gentile! The story of a life. Staples Press Ltd., London 1947, p. 64.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Lawrence Joffe: Yitzhak Ben-Aharon. In: The Guardian , June 5, 2006.
  6. ^ Israel Prize Official Site - Recipients in 1995 (Hebrew) . Retrieved September 23, 2013.
  7. ↑ גיא בניוביץ ': הישראלי מספר 1: יצחק רבין - תרבות ובידור. In: Ynet , June 20, 1995. Retrieved July 10, 2011. 
personal data
SURNAME Ben Aharon, Yitzchak
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nussenbaum, Yitzhak (maiden name); Ben Aharon, Yitzhak (different spelling); Ben-Aharōn, Yiṣḥāq (other spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli politician and minister
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Suczawa District , Bucovina , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 2006
Place of death Givat Chaim , Israel