Menachem Porusch

Menachem Porusch (May 2009)

Menachem Porusch ( Hebrew מנחם פרוש, * April 2, 1916 in Jerusalem ; † February 22, 2010 ibid) was an ultra-Orthodox rabbi and Israeli politician .

biography

After attending school, she studied Jewish studies at the Yeshiva "Etz Haim" and then worked as a journalist . As such, he was initially a reporter for the daily newspaper Hareidi abroad from 1932 to 1938 .

After the establishment of the State of Israel, he was an editor at the Kol Israel radio station from 1949 to 1963 and, for a short time, from 1950 to 1951 editor of the HaMevaser newspaper . At the same time, he was involved in social and socio-political issues and was not only the founder of a network of day-care centers and a founder and functionary of the educational institution "Independent Education".

He began his political career in 1954 when he was elected a member of the central administration of the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Jisra'el party , of which he became chairman in 1955.

On November 30, 1959, he was elected as a candidate for the Agudat Jisra'el, which was part of the Religious Torah Front (Hazit Datit Toratit) electoral alliance, for the first time as a member of the Knesset , which he was initially elected to after his re-elections in 1961, 1965, 1969 and 1974 on November 23, 1975. During this time he was mostly a member of the Constitutional , Legal and Legal Committees , and Education and Culture Committees.

Menachem Porusch was also Vice- Mayor of Jerusalem between 1969 and 1974 and thus Deputy of Teddy Kollek . During this time he also founded Kiryat HaYeled, a center for the education of ultra-Orthodox Jewish children in 1973, and also became alternate chairman of the National Center of Agudat Jisra'el in 1977.

On June 13, 1977 he was re-elected as a member of the Knesset and until June 28, 1994 he again represented the interests of Agudat Jisra'el and then finally United Torah Judaism (Yahadut HaTorah HaMeukhedet), an alliance from Agudat Jisra ' el and degel haTora . Between 1977 and 1984 he was not only Chairman of the Labor and Welfare Committee, but also a member of the Knesset Committee on National Health.

From June 24, 1984 to December 2, 1985, he was Vice Minister for Labor and Social Welfare in the government of Prime Minister Shimon Peres .

In the following years he was a member of the Knesset committees for foreign affairs and defense, finance, home affairs and the environment as well as the protection against drug abuse , before he was again Deputy Minister for Labor and Social Welfare in the cabinet from November 19, 1990 to July 13, 1992 by Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir .

As the long-time chairman of the Agudat Jisra'el, he was known as the leader of the ultra-Orthodox minority in the Jewish community, who vehemently opposed secularization in Israel and the enforcement of strict Jewish legislation. Even after his retirement from political life in 1994, he continued to exert his influence as an organizer of large demonstrations , such as the closure of a main road through the ultra-Orthodox district of Jerusalem on the Sabbath or a mass demonstration against the Supreme Court after rulings that Opening of some shops on the Sabbath, on the other hand, allowed non-Orthodox rabbis to decide whether to convert to Judaism .

His son Meir Porusch is also a member of the Knesset and was Vice Minister for Housing and Construction.

Web links

• Homepage of the Knesset