Berl Katznelson, a leader in the Labor Zionist movement, dies suddenly at the age of 57 in Jerusalem. His advocacy for the creation of a labor-based society in Israel would eventually form the basis of the Mapai party, which was created in 1930 and would dominate Israeli politics until the late 1970′s.
Dorit Beinisch, the first woman to serve as president of the Israeli Supreme Court, is born in Tel Aviv.
Jacob Toledano returns to the Land of Israel in early 1942 to take up his new post as Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Tel-Aviv and Jaffa.
Yossi Sarid, a politician on the left known as “Israel’s moral compass,” is born in Rehovot.
A close associate of Theodore Herzl, Max Bodenheimer is the first president of the Zionist Federation of Germany and is a leader in the establishment of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). He dies in Jerusalem.
May 31, 1936 National Religious Party politician Zevulun Hammer is born in Haifa. Hammer participates in the Zionist youth group Bnei Akiva and serves in the Israel Defense Forces’ Armored Corps with the Nahal program,…
David Ben-Gurion of Ahdut Ha’avodah and Joseph Sprinzak of Hapoel Hatzair recognize that their parties have more in common with each other than they have differences and begin moving towards a merger. The Mapai party is the result.
November 29, 1928 Shulamit Aloni, the lawyer and politician who founds the Meretz party, is born in Tel Aviv. From a young age, Aloni is involved with politics and is relentless in working to bring…
Ariel Sharon, Israel’s 11th Prime Minister, is born in K’far Malal (near Hod Hasharon). Born Ariel Scheinerman to political, socialist parents who had come to Eretz Yisrael during the Second Aliyah, Sharon joined the Haganah in 1945, serving in the War of Independence.
November 23, 1926 Rafi Eitan, whose intelligence career ranges from the high of capturing Adolf Eichmann in Argentina to the low of handling U.S. Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard as a spy, is born on a…
December 27, 1925 Moshe Arens, an Israeli defense minister and foreign minister, is born in Kovno, Lithuania. After moving to Riga, Latvia, when he is a toddler, his family immigrates to New York in 1939….
December 25, 1925 Politician and activist Geulah Cohen, the founder of the Tehiya party, is born in Tel Aviv. Cohen becomes involved with political movements in Mandatory Palestine when she is young, and she joins…
November 16, 1924 Haim Bar-Lev, an Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, is born in Vienna, Austria. His family moves to Yugoslavia before settling in Palestine in 1939. He studies at the Mikveh Israel agricultural…
Yehuda Amital, the founder of Yeshivat Har Etzion, is born as Yehuda Klein in Oradea, Romania, where he receives a religious education.
The only politician in Israeli history to hold the positions of both President and Prime Minister, Shimon Peres is born in Belorussia to Yitzchak and Sara Perski.
Retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice Shoshana Netanyahu, the second woman to serve on Israel’s highest court, is born in the free city of Danzig (Gdnask, Poland).
Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s 5th Prime Minister, is born in Jerusalem to parents who came to Israel during the Third Aliyah. He is the first Israeli Prime Minister to be born in Eretz Yisrael.
Yitzhak Navon, Israel’s fifth president, is born in Jerusalem.
September 23, 1920 Ovadia Yosef, a Sephardi rabbi, politician and community leader, is born in Baghdad. He moves from Iraq to Jerusalem at age 4 with his family. While studying at Porat Yosef Yeshiva, he…
Chaim Weizmann, first President of Israel, then working as a chemist in Manchester, England, is appointed to the British Admiralty as an Honorary Technical Adviser on acetone supplies.
Israeli politician, diplomat, historian, and writer Abba Eban is born in Cape Town, South Africa.
Shmuel Katz, a leader of Revisionist Zionism and a founder of the Herut Party in Israel, is born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Arthur Ruppin, head of the Palestine Office of the World Zionist Organization, purchases the estate of Sir John Gray Hill on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem for the purpose of building a university.
Teddy Kollek, Zionist leader and long-time mayor of Jerusalem, is born in Nagyvázsony, Hungary.
