Israel Rokach

Israel Rokach was born in 1896 in Jaffa

Israel Rokach was born in 1896 in Neve Tzedek, then part of Jaffa. His parents were Rachel and Shimon Rokach, and his father was one of the neighborhood's founders. He studied at a cheder and then at an Alliance school.

He went to Switzerland, attended high school in Lausanne and studied electrical engineering in Zürich. In 1920 he moved to Britain and worked as an electrical engineer. In 1922 he returned to Jaffa and opened a store for electrical goods, and in 1933 he married Esther Epstein.

In 1922 he joined the Tel Aviv city council, and in 1929 he became deputy to mayor Meir Dizengoff. After Dizengoff died in 1936, Rokach lost the council vote to Moshe Chelouche, but the British High Commissioner appointed him mayor, which caused public anger. In 1947 he was held in the Latrun detention camp for aiding the Jewish underground and was released the same year.

He was a Knesset member for the General Zionists from 1949 to 1959 and served as deputy speaker in the third Knesset. From 1952 to 1955 he was Minister of the Interior. His order to briefly close the newspaper Kol HaAm was canceled by the High Court of Justice.

Rokach died of a heart attack in 1959 and was buried in Trumpeldor Cemetery in Tel Aviv. The Rokach Prize for architecture is named after him.