Aryeh Sheftel

Aryeh Sheftel was born in 1905 in Vilnius

Sheftel was born in Vilnius in 1905. He studied at a yeshiva and graduated from the Hebrew Tarbut high school, then trained as a teacher. He was active in HeHalutz and from 1921 in the Borochov Zionist youth movement.

In 1924 he went to the Land of Israel and helped found Ramat HaKovesh, but a lung illness forced him back to Vilnius. From 1925 he was active in Poale Zion and worked as a teacher in the Tarbut school network.

In 1941 he was confined in the Vilna Ghetto, where he ran a school and took part in planning the 1943 uprising. He was sent to camps in Estonia, Stutthof and Magdeburg, and later escaped to the American lines.

After the war he helped rebuild Jewish life in Poland, edited a Yiddish newspaper from 1946 to 1947 and organized emigration. In 1947 he moved to Rishon LeZion and became secretary of the local Workers Council.

He was elected to the first Knesset in 1949 and resigned on 12 February 1951 after becoming mayor. He served as mayor of Rishon LeZion in 1951, from 1960 to 1962 and from 1965 to 1969. He died on 28 September 1980.