Israel

Cloth, 8vo. , 260 pages. In Yiddish. “With the Second Aliyah (Memoirs) ”. Added title in Spanish: Con La Segunda “Alia” (Memorias) . Ben-Zvi (Shimshelevich) , Izhak (1884–1963) , was a “Labor leader in the Yishuv, historian, Israeli politician, second president of the State of Israel; member of the First and Second Knessets. Ben-Zvi was born in Poltava, Ukraine, the eldest son of ? Evi Shimshelevich. He visited Ere? Israel for the first time in 1904 for a period of two months. He entered the University of Kiev in 1905, but studies were interrupted due to a general strike....Ben-Zvi settled in Ere? Israel at the beginning of 1907. In the same year he was a Po'alei Zion delegate from Ere? Israel to the Eighth Zionist Congress held in The Hague. He participated in the founding of the Bar Giora organization in Jaffa in 1907, and in 1909 of Ha-Shomer , along with Rahel Yanait (Ben-Zvi) , who had settled in Ere? Israel in 1908, and was to become his wife in 1918...In 1910 Ben-Zvi, together with Ra? El Yanait, Ze'ev Ashur, and others, founded the first Hebrew socialist periodical in Ere? Israel, A? Dut ("Unity") . Upon the outbreak of World War I, Ben-Zvi interrupted his studies at the University of Constantinople and returned to Ere? Israel. During the persecution of Jews by Jamal Pasha, the Ottoman governor, A? Dut was closed down, and Ben-Zvi, together with David Ben-Gurion, was imprisoned. They were both deported, and eventually made their way to New York. There they founded in 1915 the He-? Alutz movement of America...After the establishment of the State of Israel, Ben-Zvi was elected as a Mapai member to the First and Second Knessets. Upon the death of President Chaim Weizmann in 1952, he was elected president of the State. He was elected to a second term in 1957, and to a third term in 1962. He died in office on April 23, 1963...Ben-Zvi headed the Institute for the Study of Oriental Jewish Communities in the Middle East, which he founded in 1948, and which was renamed the Ben-Zvi Institute in 1952. His research on the history of the people of Israel was a lifelong endeavor. The scholarly works that he published were devoted mainly to research on communities and sects (such as the Samaritans, Karaites, Shabbateans, Jewish communities in Asia and Africa, the mountain Jews, and others) and to the geography of Ere? Israel, its ancient populations, its antiquities, and its traditions. He was also a prolific journalist, publishing articles under his own name as well as under various pseudonyms” (Shazar, EJ, 2007) . OCLC lists 14 copies worldwide. Very good condition. (YID-17-2)