Yitzhak Ben-Zvi ( Yitshak Ben-Tsvi; 24 November 188423 April 1963; born Izaak Shimshelevich) was a historian, ethnologist, and Labor Zionist who was the second president of Israel from 1952 until his death in 1963. Ben-Zvi is Israel's longest-serving president.
As a scholar, Ben-Zvi conducted extensive research on Jewish communities in the Land of Israel, including those that existed before the foundation of the modern State of Israel. He preserved oral histories, gathered firsthand accounts and documentary evidence, and published a number of books and articles on the subject. He shed light on their traditions, language, folklore, and religious practices through his work, which frequently focused on the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish as well as the Samaritan communities. The Ben-Zvi Institute he founded and directed continues to be an important institution for research on Jewish communities in the Middle East.
Biography
Early life Born in Poltava in the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine), Yitzhak Ben-Zvi was the eldest son of Zvi Shimshi (originally Shimshelevich), a writer and communal worker, and Karina (Atara), daughter of the rabbi Israel Leib Kupilevich. From his mother's side, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi was descended from Rabbi Meir Halevi Epstein. On his father's side, he traced his lineage back to Lithuanian Rabbi Jehiel ben Solomon Heilprin, Rabbi Eliyahu Chaim Meisel of Łódź, the mekubal Rabbi Moshe Ashkenazi (known as Moshe Iwer), and ultimately to the renowned commentator Rashi. His brothers were Moshe (who died aged 12 in March 1906חגי צורף (עורך), יצחק בן-צבי הנשיא השני - מבחר תעודות מפרקי חייו, (1963-1884) , עמ׳ 4), and the writer Aharon Reuveni.Dan Mazar (1994) Jerusalem Christian Review His sisters were the poet Shulamit Klogai and Dina, who married Benjamin Mazar.
As a member of the B'ne Moshe and Hovevei Zion movements in Ukraine, Zvi Shimshelevich was one of the organizers of the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in the fall of 1897, together with Theodor Herzl. At that Congress the World Zionist Organization was founded, and the intention to re-establish a Jewish state was announced. Shimshi was the only organizer of the first Zionist Congress to live to see the birth of the modern State of Israel in 1948. On 10 December 1952, Zvi Shimshi was honored by the first Knesset with the title "Father of the State of Israel"
Ben Zvi had a formal Jewish education at a Poltava heder and then the local Gymnasium. He completed his first year at Kiev University studying natural sciences before dropping out to dedicate himself to the newly formed Russian Poale Zion which he co-founded with Ber Borochov.
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi's parents were banished to Siberia following the discovery of a cache of weapons he had concealed in their home.Ben Zvi, Rahel Yanait (1963) Coming Home. Massadah - P.E.C. Press Ltd. pp.69,138
In 1918, Ben-Zvi married Rachel Yanait a fellow Poale Zion activist. They had two sons: Amram and Eli. Eli died in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, defending his kibbutz, Beit Keshet.
Poale Zion and Bar Giora
Following Borochov's arrest, March 1906, and subsequent exile in the United States, Ben Zvi became leader of the Russian Poale Zion. He moved their headquarters from Poltava to Vilna and established a publishing house, the Hammer, which produced the party's paper, The Proletarian Idea. In April 1907, having been arrested twice and being under surveillance by the Tzarist secret police, Ben-Zvi made Aliyah. He traveled on forged papers. It was his second visit to Palestine. On his arrival in Jaffa he changed his name to Ben Zvi - Son of Zvi.
He found the local Poale Zion divided and in disarray. Slightly older and more experienced than his comrades he took command and, the following month, organised a gathering of around 80 members. He and a Rostovian - a strict Marxist group from Rostov - were elected as the new Central Committee. Two of the party's founding principles were reversed: Yiddish, not Hebrew was to be the language used and the Jewish and the Arab proletariat should unite. It was agreed to publish a party journal in Yiddish - Der Anfang. The conference also voted that Ben Zvi and Israel Shochat should attend the 8th World Zionist Congress in The Hague. Once there they were generally ignored. They ran out of money on their return journey and had to work as porters in Trieste.
Back in Jaffa they held another gathering, 28 September 1907, to report on the Hague conference. On the first evening of the conference a group of nine men met in Ben Zvi's room where, swearing themselves to secrecy with Shochat as their leader, they agreed to set up an underground military organisation - Bar-Giora, named after Simon Bar Giora. Its slogan was: "Judea fell in blood and fire; Judea shall rise again in blood and fire." David Ben-Gurion was not invited to join and it had been his policies which were overturned in April. Despite this Ben Zvi tried unsuccessfully to invite Ben Gurion onto the Central Committee.Teveth, Shabtai (1987) Ben-Gurion. The Burning Ground. 1886-1948. Houghton Mifflin. . pp. 51-55 The following year Ben Zvi was one of the founding members of Hashomer.
In Jaffa Ben Zvi found work as a teacher. In 1909, he organized the Gymnasia Rehavia high school in the Bukhari quarter of Jerusalem together with Rachel Yanait.
In spring of 1910 Poale Zion (Palestine) decided to launch a Socialist Hebrew language periodical in Jerusalem. It was called Ha'ahdut and Ben Zvi persuaded Ben Gurion to join as proof reader and translator.Segev, Tom (2018 - 2019 translation Haim Watzman) A State at Any Cost. The Life of David Ben-Gurion. Apollo. . pp. 101,102Bar-Zohar, Michael (1978) Ben-Gurion. Translated by Peretz Kidron. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London. . Originally published in Israel 1977. pp. 26,72 The Haredi community in Jerusalem refused to rent them rooms.Segev (2019) p.102 At the Poale Zion conference held in April 1911, Ben Zvi announced his plan to move to capital of Ottoman Empire, Istanbul. He is firstly study to Galatasaray High School and between years in 1912-1914 Istanbul University in Faculty of Law. By the following year many of the second Aliyah activists had gathered in the Ottoman capital, with Shochat, Ben Gurion, Moshe Shertok, David Remez, Golda Lishansky, Manya Wilbushewitch and Joseph Trumpeldor all there.Meir, Golda (1975. 1976 edition) My Life. Steimatzky. p.97 Sharret, RemezSt. John, Robert (1959) Ben-Gurion. Jarrolds Publishers London. p.31 TrumpeldorTeveth (1987). p.82 LishanskySegev (2019). p.115 Wilbushewitch As Poale Zion's leading theoretician in 1912 he published a two part essay arguing that in certain circumstances Jewish national interests must take precedence over class solidarity and that Arab labourers should be excluded from Moshavot and the Jewish sector.Lockman, Zachary (1996) Comrades and Enemies. Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948. University of California Press. . p.51
During World War I
In 1915, despite calling on Jews to become Ottoman citizens and attempting to assemble a militia in Jerusalem to fight on the Ottoman side in the First World War, both Ben Zvi and Ben Gurion were expelled to Egypt.Segev (2019). pp.116-7 From there they travelled to New York where they arrived wearing their tarboushes.Bar Zohar. p 33 In America they set about recruiting members of Paole Zion to fight on the Ottoman side. When this failed he and Ben Gurion embarked on educating Paole Zion followers on the settlement projects in Palestine. This resulted in the publication of Eretz Israel - Past and Present (1918) which ran to several editions, selling 25,000 copies. Initially Ben Zvi was to be co-editor but Ben Gurion ended up dominating all aspects and despite writing about a third Ben Zvi got little recognition.Segev (2019). p.139
Ben-Zvi served in the Jewish Legion (1st Judean battalion 'KADIMAH') together with Ben-Gurion. He helped found the Ahdut HaAvoda party in 1919, and became increasingly active in the Haganah.
On returning to Palestine he married Golda Lishansky who had remained in the country throughout the war.Teveth (1987). p.135
Mandatory period In 1919 he was one of the founders of Ahdut Ha'Avoda which he helped reshape as a non-Marxist, Social Democratic party, which joined the bourgeois World Zionist Organization rather than the Communist International.Lockman (1996). p.61 With his knowledge of the Arabic language Ben Zvi was in charge of policy towards the Arabs.
In 1921 he published an essay titled The Arab Movement focusing on Palestinian Arab Nationalism in which he attempted to "resolve the apparent contradiction between the long-term goal of Zionism—the creation in Palestine of a Jewish majority and state—and the fact that at present the overwhelming majority of Palestine's population was Arab".Lockman (1996). p.59 In the essay, Ben-Zvi argued that Arabs in Palestine did not constitute a unified national entity and that Palestinian Arab nationalism was essentially inauthentic, indirectly denying their right to self-determination. He further stated that there was no true Arab liberation movement among the Arab population in Palestine. Ben-Zvi asserted that the elite, Effendi, class in Palestine were exploiting Palestinian peasants (Fellahin), and as such, the Effendis had no popular support among the indigenous inhabitants.Lockman (1996). pp.59,60 Zionism, Ben-Zvi concluded, was good for the Palestinian peasants since they are "interested in the expansion of employment and industry in the country and the improvement of the workers' lot, which of necessity results from Jewish settlement and immigration."Ben-Zvi quoted in Lockman (1996). pp.60,61 He was head of the Poale Zion's Arab labor department, despite this he opposed a 1922 railway strike by Arab and Jewish workers in Haifa, and in 1923 he blocked a strike threatened by Arab workers in Jaffa and Lydda.Lockman (1996) pp. 123,125 Between 1925 and 1928 he produced an Arabic language Zionist bi-weekly newspaper called Ittiḥād al-ʿUmmāl (Workers Unity).Lockman (1996) pp. 91,97 In 1926 Ahdut HaAvoda decided to cease all efforts at unionising Arab workers and that Arabs should be barred from joining the newly formed Histadrut.Lockman (1996) p.103
In 1931 he became chair of Va'ad Leumi.Lockman (1996) p.184
According to Avraham Tehomi, Ben-Zvi ordered the 1924 murder of Jacob Israël de Haan. De Haan had come to Palestine as an ardent Zionist, but he had become increasingly critical of the Zionist organizations, preferring a negotiated solution to the armed struggle between the Jews and Arabs. This is how Tehomi acknowledged his own part in the murder over sixty years later, in an Israeli television interview in 1985: "I have done what the Haganah decided had to be done. And nothing was done without the order of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. I have no regrets because he [de Haan] wanted to destroy our whole idea of Zionism."
Political career Ben Zvi was elected to the Jerusalem City Council and by 1931 served as president of the Jewish National Council, the shadow government of the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine. When Israel gained its independence, Ben-Zvi was among the signers of its Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948. He served in the First and Second Knessets for the Mapai party. In 1951, Ben-Zvi was appointed one of the acting members of the Government Naming Committee, whose duty was to decide on appropriate names for newly constructed settlements.
Presidency