David-Zvi Pinkas

David-Zvi Pinkas was born in 1895 in Sopron

Pinkas was born in Sopron, then part of Austria-Hungary. His father, Yaakov Yehuda Pinkas, was a businessman and banker and a founder of Mizrachi in Austria. The family moved to Vienna when he was a child.

He studied Jewish subjects at a yeshiva and law at the University of Vienna. He left his law studies to work at his father's bank. He led Young Mizrachi in Vienna, helped found the Yeshurun movement and was a delegate to the 13th Zionist Congress in 1923.

In 1925 he moved to Mandate Palestine and became director of Bank Mizrahi. In 1932 he was elected to the Tel Aviv city council and later headed the city's education department. He married Leah Horodyszcz, and the couple had 2 children.

He served in the Assembly of Representatives and the Jewish National Council, and in 1948 signed the Declaration of Independence. He was elected to the First Knesset in 1949 for the United Religious Front and chaired the finance committee. After the 1951 elections he became Minister of Transport and stopped public transport on Shabbat.

In June 1952 a bomb was placed at his apartment door by Amos Kenan and Shaltiel Ben Yair, and he was not hurt. He died of a heart attack in August 1952 and is buried in the Trumpeldor Cemetery in Tel Aviv. Ramat Pinkas is named after him.