Israel Kessar

Israel Kessar was born in 1931 in Sanaa

Kessar was born in Sanaa, Yemen, in 1931 to the Kessar Alhakam family, a family of merchants that also produced rabbis. He immigrated to Mandatory Palestine with his family in 1933. As a child he received a religious education.

He finished his IDF service as a captain. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1956 and a master's degree from Tel Aviv University in 1972, studying economics and sociology.

In the early 1950s he was among the heads of the Yemenite immigrants department at Mapai, and in 1954 he joined the party's inner secretariat. From 1960 to 1961 he advised Labor Minister Giora Yoseftal, and from 1961 to 1966 he was chief employment adviser at the Labor Ministry.

In the Histadrut he served as treasurer and head of the trade union division, and in 1984 he became its secretary general. He was elected to the Knesset in 1984. In 1992 he ran for the Labor Party leadership and lost to Yitzhak Rabin.

In 1992 he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport, and held the post until 1996. He promoted road tunnels, the Carmel Tunnels project and new traffic rules, and was an early initiator of the Tel Aviv Light Rail. He died in 2019 and was buried in Rishon LeZion.