Reuven Sheri was a Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

-born Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i politician.

Biography

Born in Comrat

Comrat

Comrat is a city in Moldova and the capital of the autonomous region of Gagauzia. It is located at , in the south of the country, on the Ialpug River. In 2004, Comrat's population was 23,429, of which the vast majority are Gagauzians.The name is of Turkic and Nogai origin...

 in Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

 (now in Moldova

Moldova

Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...

), Sheri received a traditional Hebrew primary education, before attending high school in Chişinău

Chisinau

Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...

. He later studied law at university and was amongst the founders of the Romanian branch of Tzeiri Zion.

In 1925 he made aliyah

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

 to Mandate Palestine, where he joined the Haganah

Haganah

Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...

. He served as secretary of the Kfar Saba

Kfar Saba

Kfar Saba , officially Kfar Sava, is a city in the Sharon region, of the Center District of Israel. At the end of 2009, Kfar Saba had a total population of 83,600.-History:...

 Workers Council between 1930 and 1934, and later had spells as secretary of the workers councils of Rehovot

Rehovot

Rehovot is a city in the Center District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2009 the city had a total population of 112,700. Rehovot's official website estimates the population at 114,000.Rehovot was built on the site of Doron,...

 (1934–1943) and Jerusalem (1943–1949). During the Siege of Jerusalem

Siege of Jerusalem (1948)

The Battle for Jerusalem occurred from 30 November 1947 to 11 June 1948 when Jewish and Arab population of Mandatory Palestine and later Israeli and Jordanian armies fought for the control of the city....

 in 1948 he was a member of the Jerusalem Committee. In the same year he became a member of Jerusalem City Council, and served as Deputy Mayor until 1951.

A member of the Mapai

Mapai

Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968...

 central committee, in 1949 he was elected to the first Knesset

Israeli legislative election, 1949

Elections for the Constituent Assembly were held in newly independent Israel on 25 January 1949. Voter turnout was 86.9%. Two days after its first meeting on 14 February 1949, legislators voted to change the name of the body to the Knesset...

 on the party's list. On 2 April 1951 he became the country's first ever Deputy Minister, when he was appointed Deputy Minister of Transportation in the second government

Second government of Israel

The second government of Israel was formed during the first Knesset. David Ben-Gurion made an attempt to form a minority government consisting of Mapai and Sephardim and Oriental Communities on 17 October, but it was not approved by the Knesset...

.

He was re-elected in 1951

Israeli legislative election, 1951

Elections for the second Knesset were held in Israel on 30 July 1951. Voter turnout was 75.1%.-Results:¹ Rostam Bastuni, Avraham Berman and Moshe Sneh left Mapam and set up the Left Faction. Bastuni later returned to Mapam whilst Berman and Sneh joined Maki. Hannah Lamdan and David Livschitz left...

, but lost his deputy post. In the 1955 elections

Israeli legislative election, 1955

Elections for the third Knesset were held in Israel on 26 July 1955. Voter turnout was 82.8%.-Results:Mapai retained its plurality in the Knesset, although its share of the vote dropped by 5.1 and its share of seats dropped from 47 to 40...

 he lost his Knesset seat. The following year he returned to Jerusalem City Council, but left it in 1958. From 1957 until 1968 he worked for the Ministry of Labour

Labour Minister of Israel

The Labour Minister of Israel was the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Labour and a position in the Israeli cabinet. The post was established in 1948 as the Minister of Labour and Construction...

, where he was head of Labour Relations.

He died in 1989 at the age of 86.

Awards

• In 1984, Sheri received the Yakir Yerushalayim
  Yakir Yerushalayim
  Yakir Yerushalayim is an annual citizenship prize in Jerusalem, Israel, inaugurated in 1967.The prize is awarded annually by the municipality of the City of Jerusalem to one or more residents of the city who have contributed to the cultural and educational life of the city in some outstanding way....
  
   (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award from the city of Jerusalem.

External links