Jacques Amir

Jacques Amir was born in 1933 in Essaouira

Amir was born in 1933 in Mogador, Morocco, with the family name Amzalag. He studied at a vocational high school in Casablanca and was active in a pioneer youth movement.

He moved to Israel in 1952 and joined Kibbutz Ein Gev and the Ahdut HaAvoda party. An official at Haifa port changed his first name from Jacques to Yaakov by mistake. He later lived at Kibbutz Ginosar, where he met his wife, and moved to Dimona in 1958.

He worked at the Dead Sea Works, where he became a senior foreman in the metal section and led the workers council. He also sat on the Dimona Workers Council and on the Histadrut executive committee. He served as deputy mayor of Dimona from 1965 to 1968 and again from 1973 to 1976.

In 1974 he entered the Knesset for the Alignment in place of Golda Meir, and he was reelected in 1977, 1981 and 1984. He served on committees including Foreign Affairs and Defense and Finance. In 1978 he was elected mayor of Dimona and served one term.

He lost his Knesset seat in the 1988 elections. From 1990 to 1993 he represented the Histadrut in Brussels at an international confederation of trade unions. He died in 2011 and was buried at Kibbutz Ginosar.