Zalman Shazar

Zalman Shazar (born October 6, 1889, Mir, Belarus, Russian Empire [now Belarus]—died October 5, 1974, Jerusalem) was an Israeli journalist, scholar, and politician who was the third president of Israel (1963–73).

Shazar early became involved in the Zionist movement while a youth in Belarus. In 1905 he joined Po’alei Zion, a Zionist workers’ party, and was briefly imprisoned by tsarist authorities for his activities. In 1907 Shazar moved to Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania) and embarked on a career in journalism, writing for Yiddish newspapers in Russia and the United States. In 1912 he settled in Germany, where he studied history and philosophy at the Universities of Freiburg, Strasburg, and Berlin. Shazar first visited Palestine in 1911, returning there in 1920 as a member of the World Labour Zionist delegation. He settled in Tel Aviv–Yafo in 1924 and the following year helped found Davar, the daily newspaper published by the Labour Zionist movement; he served as its editor from 1938 to 1948. In 1949 he was appointed minister of education in independent Israel’s first government, resigning in 1950 to join the Jewish Agency executive. On May 21, 1963, the Knesset (parliament) elected him president to succeed Itzhak Ben-Zvi. He was reelected in 1968 and resigned in May 1973. Shazar was also a prolific writer, and his published works included poetry, biographies, and autobiographical fiction.