Dov Zakin

Dov Zakin was born in 1922 in Baranavichy

Zakin was born in Baranavichy, then in Poland. He moved to Mandatory Palestine in 1937 and studied at the Ben Shemen Youth Village. He later studied political science and economics at Tel Aviv University.

In 1945 he was one of the founders of kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan, and he wrote its founding charter. In 1946 he founded the Wadi Ara branch of the Eretz Yisrael Workers Union. He went on missions for Hashomer Hatzair and Mapam to the camps in Cyprus, to Canada and to the United States.

He was secretary of the Peace Movement from 1959 to 1961 and served for years as a Mapam spokesman. In 1965 he organized a protest against the arrival of German ambassador Rolf Pauls. In 1968 he was chosen as political secretary of Mapam and supported joining the Alignment with the Labor Party.

He entered the Knesset in 1969 and was reelected in 1973. In 1977 he was part of the Mapam faction that briefly left the Alignment, and he lost his seat that year. He returned to the Knesset in 1981 and served until 1984, and later sat on the board of the World Zionist Organization.