Yitzhak Berman

Yitzchak Berman ( Hebrew יצחק ברמן; * June 3, 1913 in Berdychiv , Ukraine ; † August 4, 2013 in Tel Aviv ) was an Israeli politician who was briefly Minister and President of the Knesset .

Life

Berman, by the emigration ( aliyah ) of his parents in 1920 to Palestine , studied came first at the teacher training college in Jerusalem , before, after studying law at the University of London as a lawyer worked. In 1939, he was a follower of David Raziel member of the Irgun , one as Etzel known Zionist underground movement , and was in her intelligence operates. During World War II he was in contact with the Allies and served as an intelligence officer in the British Army between 1941 and 1945 .

After the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, he was accepted as a major in the Israel Defense Forces , which had been founded on May 31, 1948, and served there until 1950. He then became a legal advisor and then until 1954 General Director of the Kaizer Frazier factory in Haifa . In 1951 he became a member of the General Zionist Party , which dissolved in 1961. He then became a member of the Cherut and in 1964 head of the Secretariat of the Cherut of Tel Aviv . After the merger of the Cherut with the Gachal to form Likud in 1973, Berman became chairman of the Likud National Secretariat in 1974.

On June 13, 1977, Yitzchak Berman was elected for the first time as a member of the Knesset and represented the interests of Likud in it until August 13, 1984. On March 12, 1980, he was finally President of the Parliament as speaker of the Knesset and held this office until July 20, 1981. At the same time, he was temporarily chairman of the main committee of Parliament.

On August 5, 1981, Berman was appointed Minister for Energy and Infrastructure in his cabinet by Prime Minister Menachem Begin . On September 30, 1982, he resigned his ministerial office, expressing his opposition to the attitude of the Begin government. This had initially refused to set up a commission of inquiry into the massacres of Sabra and Shatila . It was only the pressure of mass protests and the fear that other ministers might follow Berman that prompted Begin to set up the Kahan Commission .

After leaving the Likud, he was the founder and chairman of the Liberal Center Party in 1986, before he was one of the founders of the Center Party in 1987. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu praised Berman in an obituary as "nationalists, Israeli patriots and true Jews".

Web links

• Entry on the homepage of the Knesset

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Former Knesset speaker Berman dies at 100
2. ↑ ^{a b} Times of Israel obituary for Berman (English)