Isaac Berman

Isaac Berman was born in 1913 in Berdychiv

Berman was born in 1913 in Berdychiv, then in the Russian Empire and now in Ukraine. His father was Rabbi Yaakov Berman. He moved with his parents to the Land of Israel in 1920.

He studied at a Hebrew teachers college in Jerusalem. He then studied law at the University of London and the Inner Temple and qualified as a lawyer.

He was active in Betar and joined the Irgun, where he worked in intelligence and helped defend its members in court. In World War II he served in British Army intelligence, and he served in the IDF from 1948 to 1950.

From 1950 to 1954 he was legal advisor and then Director General of the Kaiser-Frazer factory in Haifa, and later worked as a lawyer in Tel Aviv. He joined the General Zionists in 1951 and entered the Knesset on the Likud list in 1977. He was Speaker of the Knesset and then Minister of Energy, and resigned in 1982 over the government's stance on a state inquiry after the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

He lost his seat in 1984 and in 1986 helped found the Liberal Center Party. He lived his last years in a retirement home in Tel Aviv. He died in 2013 and was buried at Mount Herzl.