Eliyahu Mazur

Eliyahu Mazur was born in 1889 in Poland

Eliyahu Mazur was born in 1889 in Zagórów, Poland, to a family of rabbis. His father, Rabbi Meir Zvi Mazur, served as a rabbi in Zagórów, Radziejów and Warsaw. He studied at the study hall in his hometown and married Zehava (Golda) Klinger in 1912.

He helped found a Mizrachi branch in Włodawa and moved to Warsaw in 1917. With his father and brothers he set up the import firm Mazur Brothers. He later joined Agudat Yisrael, sat on its Polish executive and, from 1924, on its world committee.

He led the executive committee of Jewish merchants in Poland and served as president of the Warsaw Jewish community. From 1934 to 1939 he was president of the Chachmei Lublin yeshiva. When World War II began he fled through Lviv to Vilnius and reached the Land of Israel in March 1940.

In 1941 the family partnership opened a diamond factory in Tel Aviv. He sat on the executive committees of the diamond industrialists' association and the Manufacturers Association, and was active in the Yishuv rescue committee for Jewish refugees.

He ran for the first Knesset on the United Religious Front list and entered it after Moshe Kelmer resigned on 11 March 1949. He lost his seat in the 1951 elections and died on 24 September 1973.