Zalman Shazar
Encyclopedia
Zalman Shazar (November 24, 1889 – October 5, 1974) was an Israel
i politician, author. and poet. Shazar served as the third President of Israel
from 1963 to 1973.
denomination in Mir
, near Minsk
, in the Russian Empire
(today in Hrodna Voblast
, Belarus), he received a religious education as a youth. In his teenage years he became involved in the Poale Zion
Movement. Shazar immigrated
to Mandate Palestine in 1924, and became a member of the secretariat of the Histadrut
.
Shazar died on October 5, 1974. He is buried on Mount Herzl
in Jerusalem.
from 1944 to 1949.
He was elected to the first Knesset
in 1949 as a member of Mapai
, and was appointed Minister of Education in David Ben-Gurion
's first government
. He was not a member of Ben-Gurion's second cabinet
, but retained his seat in the 1951
and 1955 elections
. He also became a member of the Jewish Agency
Executive in 1952. He resigned from the Knesset
in 1956, and from 1956 to 1960 was acting chairman of the Jewish Agency's Jerusalem Executive.
by the Knesset in 1963. He was re-elected for a second term in 1968. In 1973 he was succeeded by Ephraim Katzir
.In 1964, when Pope Paul VI visited Israel, Shazar read to him the verse in Micah
stating that though other nations might follow other gods, “we will walk in the Name of our Lord God forever”.
In 1969, Shazar sent one of 73 Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages
to NASA
for the historic first lunar landing. The message still rests on the lunar surface today. It states, "From the President of Israel in Jerusalem with hope for 'abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth' (Psalms 72,7)."*
Shazar's portrait appears on 200 shekel
bills.
In 2005, he was voted the 139th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.
night in 1957, Zalman Shazar
was with a friend in Meron
. There they saw a Hasid, Odesser, reciting the Tikkun Chatzot
("Midnight Lament") with intense fervor. They were very moved by this, and, when the Hasid had finished, they asked who he was. Thus began a lifelong friendship between Shazar and Odesser. Over the years, Odesser wrote many letters to Shazar, explaining the Breslov way of personal prayer and devotion, and urging him to return to God (Shazar was non-religious at the time). Shazar was greatly inspired by these letters and did become more religious. He later published the letters, along with a short biography of Odesser, in a Hebrew book entitled Ibay Ha-Nachal (in Hebrew: אבי הנחל). In 1995, this book was translated into English as Young Buds of the Stream.
The word "ibey" (אבי), meaning buds, in the Hebrew title of the book, is a reversal of the abbreviation of Odesser's name (ישראל בער אדסר). The Hebrew
title "Ibey Ha-Nachal" therefore has the double meanings "Yisroel Odesser, the stream/river" and "Young Buds of the Stream".
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i politician, author. and poet. Shazar served as the third President of Israel
President of Israel
The President of the State of Israel is the head of state of Israel. The position is largely an apolitical ceremonial figurehead role, with the real executive power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister. The current president is Shimon Peres who took office on 15 July 2007...
from 1963 to 1973.
Biography
Shazar (Shneur Zalman Rubashov) was born to a Hasidic family of the Chabad-LubavitchChabad
Chabad or Chabad-Lubavitch is a major branch of Hasidic Judaism.Chabad may also refer to:*Chabad-Strashelye, a defunct branch of the Chabad school of Hasidic Judaism*Chabad-Kapust or Kapust, a defunct branch of the Chabad school of Hasidic Judaism...
denomination in Mir
Mir, Belarus
Mir is an urban settlement in Kareličy raion, Hrodna Voblast, Belarus on the banks of Miranka River, about 85 kilometers southwest of the national capital, Minsk....
, near Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
, in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(today in Hrodna Voblast
Hrodna Voblast
Hrodna Voblast or Grodno Oblast is a voblast in northwestern Belarus.The capital - Grodno is the biggest city of the province. It lies on the Neman River. Grodno's existence is attested to from 1127. Two castles dating from the 14th - 18th centuries are located here on the steep right bank of...
, Belarus), he received a religious education as a youth. In his teenage years he became involved in the Poale Zion
Poale Zion
Poale Zion was a Movement of Marxist Zionist Jewish workers circles founded in various cities of the Russian Empire about the turn of the century after the Bund rejected Zionism in 1901.-Formation and early years:Poale Zion parties and organisations were started across the Jewish diaspora in the...
Movement. Shazar immigrated
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 in 1924, and became a member of the secretariat of the Histadrut
Histadrut
HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael , known as the Histadrut, is Israel's organization of trade unions. Established in December 1920 during the British Mandate for Palestine, it became one of the most powerful institutions of the State of Israel.-History:The Histadrut was founded in...
.
Shazar died on October 5, 1974. He is buried on Mount Herzl
Mount Herzl
Mount Herzl , also Har HaZikaron , is the national cemetery of Israel on the west side of Jerusalem. It is named for Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism. Herzl's tomb lies at the top of the hill. Yad Vashem, which commemorates the Holocaust, lies to the west of Mt. Herzl....
in Jerusalem.
Journalistic and political career
Shazar served as the editor-in-chief of the Israeli newspaper DavarDavar
Davar was a Hebrew-language daily newspaper published in the Mandate Palestine and Israel between 1925 and May 1996.-History:Davar was established by Moshe Beilinson and Berl Katznelson, with Katznelson as its first editor. The first edition was published on 1 June 1925 under the name Davar - Iton...
from 1944 to 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...
in 1949 as a member of 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...
, and was appointed Minister of Education in David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion
' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
's first government
First government of Israel
The first government of Israel formed by David Ben-Gurion on 8 March 1949, a month and a half after the elections for the first Knesset. His Mapai party formed a coalition with the United Religious Front, the Progressive Party, the Sephardim and Oriental Communities and the Democratic List of...
. He was not a member of Ben-Gurion's second cabinet
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...
, but retained his seat in the 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...
and 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 also became a member of the Jewish Agency
Jewish Agency for Israel
The Jewish Agency for Israel , also known as the Sochnut or JAFI, served as the organization in charge of immigration and absorption of Jews from the Diaspora into the state of Israel.-History:...
Executive in 1952. He resigned from the Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...
in 1956, and from 1956 to 1960 was acting chairman of the Jewish Agency's Jerusalem Executive.
Presidency
Shazar was elected presidentIsraeli presidential election, 1963
An election to choose the third President of Israel was held in the Knesset on 21 May 1963 following the death of the county's second president, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi on 23 April...
by the Knesset in 1963. He was re-elected for a second term in 1968. In 1973 he was succeeded by Ephraim Katzir
Ephraim Katzir
Ephraim Katzir was an Israeli biophysicist and former Israeli Labor Party politician. He was the fourth President of Israel from 1973 until 1978.-Biography:...
.In 1964, when Pope Paul VI visited Israel, Shazar read to him the verse in Micah
Micah
Micah is a given name.Micah is the name of several people in the Hebrew Bible , and means "who is like God?". The name is sometimes found with theophoric extensions...
stating that though other nations might follow other gods, “we will walk in the Name of our Lord God forever”.
In 1969, Shazar sent one of 73 Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages
Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages
The Apollo 11 goodwill messages are statements from leaders of 73 countries around the world on a disc about the size of a 50-cent piece made of silicon that was left on the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts....
to NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
for the historic first lunar landing. The message still rests on the lunar surface today. It states, "From the President of Israel in Jerusalem with hope for 'abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth' (Psalms 72,7)."*
Published works
- Morning Stars, Jewish Publication Society of AmericaJewish Publication Society of AmericaThe Jewish Publication Society , originally known as the Jewish Publication Society of America, is the oldest nonprofit, nondenominational publisher of Jewish works in English...
: Philadelphia, 1967. Translated from the Hebrew, Kochvei boker (Tel Aviv: Am Oved Publishers, 1950; 7th edition, 1966) by Shulamith Schwartz Nardi. Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 66-17828.
Awards and commemoration
- In 1966, Shazar was the co-recipient (jointly with Israel Efrat) of the Bialik PrizeBialik PrizeThe Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. There are two separate prizes, one specifically for "Literature", which is in the field of fiction,...
for literatureHebrew literatureHebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews...
.
Shazar's portrait appears on 200 shekel
Israeli new sheqel
The Israeli New Shekel is the currency of the State of Israel. The shekel is divided into 100 agorot...
bills.
In 2005, he was voted the 139th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
Ynet
Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...
to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.
Correspondence with Rabbi Yisroel Dov Ber Odesser
On a rainy Tu BishvatTu Bishvat
Tu Bishvat or Tu B'Shevat is a minor Jewish holiday, occurring on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat . It is also called "The New Year of the Trees" or...
night in 1957, Zalman Shazar
Zalman Shazar
Zalman Shazar was an Israeli politician, author. and poet. Shazar served as the third President of Israel from 1963 to 1973.-Biography:...
was with a friend in Meron
Meron (Israel)
Meron is a moshav on the slopes of Mount Meron, in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel near Safed, and within municipal jurisdiction of the Merom HaGalil Regional Council...
. There they saw a Hasid, Odesser, reciting the Tikkun Chatzot
Tikkun Chatzot
Tikkun Chatzot is a Jewish ritual of lamentation that is recited after midnight in memory of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is a highly praiseworthy observance which is not universally observed. Over the past few years, there have been attempts to revive the custom of Tikkun...
("Midnight Lament") with intense fervor. They were very moved by this, and, when the Hasid had finished, they asked who he was. Thus began a lifelong friendship between Shazar and Odesser. Over the years, Odesser wrote many letters to Shazar, explaining the Breslov way of personal prayer and devotion, and urging him to return to God (Shazar was non-religious at the time). Shazar was greatly inspired by these letters and did become more religious. He later published the letters, along with a short biography of Odesser, in a Hebrew book entitled Ibay Ha-Nachal (in Hebrew: אבי הנחל). In 1995, this book was translated into English as Young Buds of the Stream.
The word "ibey" (אבי), meaning buds, in the Hebrew title of the book, is a reversal of the abbreviation of Odesser's name (ישראל בער אדסר). The Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
title "Ibey Ha-Nachal" therefore has the double meanings "Yisroel Odesser, the stream/river" and "Young Buds of the Stream".
External links
- The Zalman Shazar Center
- Central Zionist ArchivesCentral Zionist ArchivesThe Central Zionist Archives The Central Zionist Archives The Central Zionist Archives (CZA; Hebrew: (הארכיון הציוני המרכזי (אצ"מ) is an archive in Jerusalem, Israel, housing the historical archives of the Zionist movement from 1880-1970 and documenting the growth of the Zionist movement throughout...
in Jerusalem site: Office of Zalman Shazar (S61).