Mordechai Surkis

Mordechai Surkis was born in 1908 in Ivano-Frankivsk

Surkis was born in Stanyslaviv in Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary, to Jewish parents Moshe and Rivka. He finished high school and worked as a clerk. In 1933 he moved to Mandatory Palestine and worked in construction and as a plumber.

He joined the Haganah and gathered intelligence in the Sharon region. In World War II he served in the Jewish Brigade. After the war he worked in the Bricha movement, which brought Holocaust refugees from Europe, and for a time he led it in Poland.

He was elected to the Kfar Saba local council in 1949 and became its head in 1951. When Kfar Saba was declared a city in 1962, he became its first mayor. From 1959 to 1965 he chaired the Local Government Association.

In 1965 he left Mapai for Rafi and was elected to the Knesset, while losing the mayoral race. He kept his seat in 1969 with the Alignment and chaired the Knesset Interior Committee. He lost his seat in the 1973 elections.

In 1966 he was involved in a road accident in Ramat Gan. At his request his immunity was lifted, and he was convicted of negligent driving. He died in 1995, and a school in Kfar Saba bears his name.