Politicsאברהם שוחט

Abraham Shochat

Avraham Shochat was an Israeli engineer and Labor Party politician who served as mayor of Arad and twice as Minister of Finance.

1936 to 2024Founding and leading AradTwice Minister of FinanceThe Paris economic protocolsThe 2007 tuition fees report

Born: 14 June 1936, Tel Aviv
Died: 28 February 2024, Tel Aviv
Occupation: engineer, politician
Party: Israeli Labor Party
Education: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Abraham Shochat was born in 1936 in Tel Aviv

Avraham "Beiga" Shochat was born in Tel Aviv in 1936. His father Zvi worked as a foreman at Solel Boneh. He was active in the HaTnua HaMeuhedet youth movement.

He served in the Nahal paratroopers and then joined Kibbutz Nahal Oz from 1956 to 1957. He earned a BSc in civil engineering at the Technion, where he was elected chairman of the Student Union. He married Tama, daughter of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, and they had 3 children.

In the early 1960s he was an engineer on the team that founded Arad. From 1964 to 1967 he ran the Solel Boneh branch in Arad. In 1967 he was elected head of the Arad local council and held the post until 1989.

He entered the Knesset in May 1988 and chaired the Finance Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee. He was Minister of Finance under Yitzhak Rabin from 1992 and under Ehud Barak from 1999 to 2001. In 1994 he signed the Paris economic protocols for Israel.

After leaving the Knesset he wrote a report on university tuition fees, published in July 2007. He died on 28 February 2024.