Politicsפרץ נפתלי

Peretz Naftali

Peretz Naftali was a German-born economist and trade union leader who became an Israeli politician and served as a minister in the 1950s.

1888 to 1961The economic democracy programLeading Bank HapoalimIsrael's Minister of Agriculture

Born: 29 March 1888, Berlin
Died: 30 April 1961, Tel Aviv
Occupation: economist, politician, journalist, pedagogue
Party: Social Democratic Party of Germany, Mapai

Peretz Naftali was born in 1888 in Berlin

Naftali was born Fritz Naftali in Berlin in 1888. He studied at a secondary school and a commercial college. In 1916 he married Lofia Siss, and the couple had a daughter, Miriam.

He joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1911 and worked as an economic journalist. From 1921 to 1926 he edited the economics section of the Frankfurter Zeitung. From 1926 he headed the economic research body of the German trade union federation, and in 1928 he published a program called Economic Democracy.

Naftali joined the Zionist movement in 1925 and was a delegate to the Zionist Congress in 1931. After the Nazis took power, he moved to the Land of Israel in 1933. He lectured on economics at the Technion and was director general of Bank Hapoalim from 1938 to 1949.

He was a Mapai member of the Assembly of Representatives from 1941 to 1948 and of the Knesset from 1949 to 1959. He served as minister without portfolio, Minister of Agriculture from 1952 to 1955, and Minister of Welfare in 1959. He died in 1961 and was buried at Kibbutz Alumot.