Yitzchak Gruenbaum

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Jitzchak Gruenbaum 1948

Jitzchak Gruenbaum ( Polish Izaak Grünbaum , Yiddish and Hebrew יצחק גרינבוים; * November 24, 1879 in Warsaw , Russian Empire ; † September 7, 1970 in Gan Shmuel, Israel ) was the first Minister for Internal Affairs of the State of Israel.

Live and act

Education and journalistic career

Gruenbaum was born in Warsaw . As a law student, he began activities on behalf of the Zionist movement and as a journalist . He was the editor of several magazines, including the Hebrew Ha-Zafirah and the Hebrew weekly Ha-Olam . Under his editorship, the Yiddish daily Haynt acquired a Prozionist character.

Jitzchak Gruenbaum during the Second Polish Republic

Political career in Poland

Under Gruenbaum's leadership, the radical Zionist faction in Poland came to be known as Al Hamishmar . In 1919 Gruenbaum was elected to the Polish parliament, the Sejm , where he organized the “Jews Block” with Apolinary Hartglas and thus united most of the Jewish parties. He was the driving force behind cooperation with other minority parties represented in the Sejm, including the Germans and Ukrainians. This strengthened the Jewish representation in the Sejm, which was accompanied by a rise in political Zionism. Gruenbaum was known for his courageous attitude towards minority interests. He viewed the Jews as an ethnic minority and represented Jewish interests in various Polish organizations. From 1925 to 1933 Gruenbaum was Deputy Vice President of the European Nationalities Congress .

In the Mandate Palestine and during the Holocaust

After living in Paris in 1932 , Gruenbaum made Aliyah to Mandate Palestine in 1933 after being elected to the board of the Jewish Agency at the eighteenth Zionist Congress that same year . After the outbreak of World War II and during the Holocaust, he was selected by the Committee of Four to maintain contact with Polish Jews and to organize help to save them. When the mass extermination by the German occupiers in Eastern Europe became known in 1942, Gruenbaum was a member of a 12-member Rescue Committee , but the circumstances severely limited her rescue efforts.

Zionist leaders, arrested during Operation Agatha , here in Latrun camp (from left to right): David Remez , Moshe Sharett , Yitzhak Gruenbaum, Dov Yosef , Shenkarsky, David Hacohen and Halperin ( Isser Harel ) (1946)

At the end of the war he suffered a personal crisis. His son Eliezer Gruenbaum was charged in Paris by two other Jewish Holocaust survivors of atrocities against fellow Jewish prisoners. Gruenbaum stayed by his side in court. The case is closed. In 1948 Eliezer Gruenbaum fell in the war for Israel's independence .

In 1946 Gruenbaum was arrested by the British with the directors of the Jewish Agency and interned in a prison camp in Latrun.

He was one of the 37 first signatories of the Israeli declaration of independence .

Post-political career

After leaving politics, Yitzhak Gruenbaum took over the editing of an encyclopedia on diaspora communities and the history of the Zionist movement. He spent his final years in Kibbutz Gan Shmuel and died in 1970. The Alonei Yitzhak educational institution is named after him.

literature

Web links

Commons : Yitzhak Gruenbaum  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ biographical information
  2. ^ Historical Dictionary of Zionism. Routledge. pp. 66-67, 163. ISBN 978-1-57958-286-9 . Retrieved March 20, 2015. Gruenbaum was the leader of the Radical Zionists, known in Poland as Al Hamishmar.
  3. ↑ Gruenbaum on an Israeli stamp with a short biography ( memento of the original from August 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www-personal.umich.edu
  4. ^ Albert S. Kotowski: Poland's policy towards its German minority 1919-1939. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998, p. 189.
  5. ^ Philipp Graf: The Bernheim petition 1933: Jewish politics in the interwar period. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008, p. 121.
  6. ↑ detailed biography
personal data
SURNAME Gruenbaum, Yitzchak
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grünbaum, Isaac; Grünbaum, Isaac; Grünbaum, Jitzchak; Grünbaum, Izaak; Gruenbaum, Yitzhak; Grinboym, Yitskhok (other spellings)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli politician and minister, member of the Sejm
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 7th September 1970
Place of death Gan Shmuel , Israel