Aryeh Eliav

Aryeh Eliav was born in 1921 in Moscow

He was born in Moscow in 1921 as Lev Lipschitz, to Yosef and Matilda Lipschitz. His family moved to Mandatory Palestine in 1924. He attended the Halperin school and the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv, and later studied history and sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He joined the Haganah in 1936 and served in the British Army during World War II. After the war he worked in Aliyah Bet and commanded an immigrant ship, where he met his future wife Tania. In the War of Independence he served on the Jerusalem front and then in the navy.

He worked as an aide to Levi Eshkol on immigration and settlement. From 1955 to 1957 he led the settlement of the Lakhish region, and during the Suez Crisis he directed Operation Tushia to bring the Jews of Port Said to Israel. From 1958 to 1960 he was first secretary at the Israeli embassy in Moscow, and he also led the founding team of Arad.

He entered the Knesset in 1965 for the Alignment and became Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry. He resigned as general secretary of the Labour Party in 1971 over its refusal to recognize the Palestinian people. He later founded the Independent Socialist Faction and left the Knesset in 1979 under a rotation agreement.

In 1987 he led the founding of Nitzana, an educational community in the Negev. He returned to the Knesset from 1988 to 1992 and received the Israel Prize in 1988. He died in Tel Aviv in 2010.