Yitzhak Ben-Zvi

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi was born in 1884 in Poltava

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi was born in 1884 in Poltava, in the Russian Empire, as Izaak Shimshelevich. He was the eldest son of Zvi Shimshelevich, a Zionist writer and communal worker. His brother was the writer Aharon Reuveni and his sister was the poet Shulamit Klogai.

He studied at a heder and then at the local gymnasium, and later studied natural sciences at Kiev University. With Ber Borochov he founded the Poale Zion party in Russia. After weapons were found at his father's home in 1906, his parents were exiled to Siberia.

In 1907 he settled in Jaffa and helped found the underground group Bar-Giora, and later Hashomer. With Rachel Yanait, whom he married in 1918, he helped found the Gymnasia Rehavia in Jerusalem. He studied law in Istanbul, and in 1915 the Ottoman authorities expelled him to Egypt, from where he went to New York.

In 1919 he was among the founders of the Ahdut HaAvoda party. As a scholar he studied Jewish communities, mainly Mizrahi, Sephardic and Samaritan ones, and in 1947 he founded the Ben-Zvi Institute. He signed Israel's Declaration of Independence and served in the Knesset for Mapai.

In 1952 he became the second president of Israel and was elected to the post 3 times. His son Eli was killed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He died in office in 1963.