Yosef Tamir

Yosef Tamir was born in 1915 in Berdychiv

Yosef Tamir was born Yosef Kvenzel in Berdychiv in the Russian Empire on 5 March 1915. His father was a doctor, Naftali Kvenzel. In 1924 the family immigrated to the Land of Israel and settled in Petah Tikva.

He went to school in Petah Tikva and finished high school at the Ahad Ha'am Gymnasium. He began studying at the School of Law and Economics in Tel Aviv. As a young man he was active in Maccabi and won 3 medals at the Maccabiah Games.

From 1935 to 1945 he worked as a journalist for Haaretz, the Palestine Post, Yedioth Ahronoth and HaBoker. He was a military correspondent during the War of Independence. He married Naomi Manevitz in 1939, and they had a daughter and a son.

Tamir served as general secretary of the General Zionists. In 1965 he helped found Gahal and was elected to the Knesset, and he later helped found Likud. In 1979 he left Likud for Shinui, then sat as an independent, and he left the Knesset in 1981.

He founded the Council for a Beautiful Israel in 1968 and the Life and Environment organization in 1975. He represented the Knesset at the first UN conference on the human environment in Stockholm in 1972. He died on 10 August 2009.