Yizhak Gruenbaum

1879 - 1970

Polish Zionist.

Active in the early Zionism movement at the start of the twentieth century, Yizhak Gruenbaum participated in several Zionist congresses before World War I. He was elected to the Polish Sejm (parliament) from 1919 to 1932, when he immigrated to Palestine. He soon became a leader of the Jewish Agency, but he resigned after Lord Moyne's assassination in November 1944. He was Israel's minister of interior in the 1948 - 1949 provisional government, but he failed to win a Knesset (parliament) seat in the 1949 election. He was a MAPAI (labor party) supporter and an ardent champion of a secular Israeli state.

— ZACHARY KARABELL