Moshe Sneh

Moshe Sneh was born in 1909 in Radzyń Podlaski

Moshe Sneh was born Moshe Kleinbaum in Radzyń Podlaski, Poland, in 1909, to Shimon Kleinbaum and Yentl Lichtenstein. He studied medicine at the University of Warsaw and earned his MD in 1935. As a student he led Zionist student groups.

In Poland he edited Zionist newspapers, including the Yiddish daily Haynt, and became a leader of the General Zionists. He served as a medical officer in the Polish Army at the start of World War II and was taken prisoner by the Soviets. He escaped to Kaunas, while his sister and parents died in the Holocaust.

He reached Mandatory Palestine in 1940 and joined the Haganah, heading its national command from 1941 to 1946. He was one of the commanders of the Jewish Resistance Movement. After the British operation of June 1946 he fled to Paris, and he resigned when the armed struggle was stopped.

In Paris he headed the Jewish Agency's political department in Europe and oversaw clandestine immigration. He left the General Zionists in 1947, helped found Mapam and entered the first Knesset in 1949. In 1953 he split from Mapam, formed the Left Faction and joined Maki in 1954.

He served in the Knesset for Maki until 1965, when he lost his seat. He returned in 1969 and was the only Maki member of the Knesset until his death in 1972. His son Efraim Sneh became a government minister.