Gershon Agron

Gershon Agron was born in 1894 in Mena

Agron was born Gershon Agronsky in Mena, in the Russian Empire, to Yehuda Agronsky and Sheindl Mirenberg. He received a traditional Jewish education and moved with his family to Philadelphia in 1906. As a boy he helped found a Zionist youth club there.

He studied at Temple University and other schools in Philadelphia. In 1915 he began working as a journalist for Jewish papers in English and Yiddish. In 1917 he moved to New York to edit a Zionist Organization paper.

In 1918 he joined the Jewish Legion and fought in the Land of Israel at the end of World War I. After his release in 1920 he settled in Jerusalem. He later ran the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in New York and returned in 1924 to head the Zionist press office.

In 1932 he founded The Palestine Post in Jerusalem and edited it. The paper was renamed The Jerusalem Post in 1950. From 1949 to 1951 he headed the government information services in the Prime Minister's Office.

He was elected mayor of Jerusalem in 1955 for Mapai and focused on the city's economic development. An attempt to remove him in 1956 failed. He died in office in 1959 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.