Isaac Shamir

Isaac Shamir was born in 1915 in Ruzhany

Shamir was born Yitzhak Yezernitsky in 1915 in Ruzhany, now in Belarus, to Perla and Shlomo. He studied at the Hebrew high school in Białystok and joined the Betar youth movement. His parents and two sisters were murdered in the Holocaust.

In 1934 he began law studies at the University of Warsaw but left them to immigrate to the Land of Israel in 1935. He studied briefly at the Hebrew University and worked in construction and in an accountant's office.

He joined the Irgun in 1937 and moved to Lehi in 1941, where he became one of its leaders after Avraham Stern was killed. He was arrested by the British more than once and escaped twice, the second time from a camp in Eritrea in 1947. In 1944 he married Shulamit, a Lehi member, and they had 2 children.

From 1955 to 1965 he served in the Mossad. He joined Herut in 1969, entered the Knesset in 1974, and was Speaker of the Knesset and then Foreign Minister. He became prime minister in 1983 and again in 1986 under a rotation deal with Shimon Peres, and took part in the 1991 Madrid Conference.

After losing the 1992 election he led the opposition until 1993 and left the Knesset in 1996. He received the Israel Prize in 2001. He died in 2012 and was buried on Mount Herzl.