Ben-Zion Harel

Ben-Zion Harel was born in 1892 in Kuldīga

Ben-Zion Harel was born Ben-Zion Hirshowitz in 1892 in Kuldīga, then in the Russian Empire and today in Latvia. He attended a heder and a local high school.

He moved to Switzerland, where he studied chemistry at the University of Zurich and medicine at the University of Bern. He qualified as a doctor in 1916. During his studies he took part in Zionist groups in Switzerland.

In 1921 he moved to the Land of Israel and worked as a doctor at Ein Harod until 1934. He helped found the Emek hospital and became its director when it opened in 1930, and he was chief doctor of Kupat Holim in the north. In 1935 he was elected chairman of the physicians association and helped found Assuta in Tel Aviv, which he directed.

He handled emergency health affairs for the Jewish National Council in 1940 and 1941. After independence he was director general of the Ministry of Health until 1950 and founded Elisha Hospital in Haifa. He was elected to the Knesset in 1951 and again in 1955, and did not run in 1959.

From 1962 to 1968 he chaired the association of hospital directors in Israel. He died in 1972 and was buried in Nahalat Yitzhak cemetery in Tel Aviv.