Avraham Tiar

Avraham Tiar was born in 1924 in Gabès

Avraham Tiar was born on 29 January 1924 in Gabès, Tunisia. He joined Betar there at 13 and became head of the local branch in 1942. In 1946 he became general secretary of Betar in Tunisia and a leader of the Revisionist Party in the country.

In 1947 he sailed to Mandatory Palestine on the ship Ben Hecht. The British stopped the ship and sent him to an internment camp in Cyprus. He was released in April 1948.

Tiar studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was certified as a lawyer. In 1948 he was among the founders of Herut, and in 1956 he joined its central committee.

He was elected to the Knesset in 1961 and became secretary of the Haifa branch of Herut. He was re-elected in 1965 on the Gahal list, and in 1967 he was one of 3 members who left Gahal to form the Free Centre. He lost his seat in 1969 and returned to Herut in 1977.

In the Histadrut he helped found the Blue-White faction and later led the Free Centre faction and edited its magazine, New Age. From 1979 to 1982 he was head emissary of the Jewish Agency in Europe. He died on 25 April 2011.