Creator Bio
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
1884–1963
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (b. Shimshelevich) was the second president of the State of Israel and a longtime Labor Party leader. Born in Poltava, Ukraine, Ben-Zvi moved to Palestine in 1907, first living in Jaffa. He studied law at Istanbul University, along with David Ben-Gurion, and was expelled for political reasons from Palestine from 1914 until 1918. Ben-Zvi became the president of the new State of Israel in 1952, a position he held until the end of his life. As a historian of Mizrahi Judaism, Ben-Zvi also founded Jerusalem’s Institute for the Study of Oriental Jewish Communities in the Middle East, which was renamed the Ben-Zvi Institute in his honor.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
The Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East
The Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East was established in 1948 with the aid of three bodies: the General…
Primary Source
Editorial Statement of Der onfang
Before we come to the determination of our tasks, we would like to pause for a while to consider the situation of the present moment. We are experiencing here in Palestine a relatively quiet…