 Zalman
Shazar (Hebrew: זלמן שז"ר,
born Shneur Zalman Rubashov on 24 November 1889, died
October 5, 1974) was an Israeli politician, author and
poet, and served as the third President of Israel from
1963 to 1973.
Born to a Hasidic family of the Chabad-Lubavitch stream
in Mir, near Minsk, 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 also served as the editor-in-chief of the Israeli
newspaper Davar 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.
He was elected president by the Knesset in 1963, and
was re-elected in 1968. In 1973 he was succeeded by
Ephraim Katzir.
His portrait is printed on the 200 NIS bills.
In 1969, Shazar sent 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)." |
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