Daniel Auster was Mayor of Jerusalem in the final years of the British Mandate of Palestine, the first Jewish mayor of the city, and the first mayor of Jerusalem after Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i independence.

Biography

Born in the town of Knihinin, Stanislowow - Galicia, he made aliyah

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

 to Ottoman-controlled Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 prior to World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 after finishing his law studies at the University in Vienna, Austria, graduating in 1914. He then served at the Austrian expeditionary force headquarters in Damascus, assisting Arthur Ruppin

Arthur Ruppin

Arthur Ruppin was a Zionist thinker and leader. He was also one of the founders of the city of Tel Aviv, and a pioneering sociologist credited as being "The Father Of Jewish Sociology", directing Berlin's Bureau for Jewish Statistics and Demography from 1902 to 1907...

 in sending financial help from Constantinople to the starving yishuv. In 1919 he became Secretary of the Legal Department of the Zionist Commission in Jerusalem. He became Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem under Raghib Nashashibi in 1935. In 1937 he became the first Jewish Mayor of Jerusalem. He was also a member of the Assembly of Representatives for the General Zionists

General Zionists

The General Zionists were centrists within the Zionist movement and a political party in Israel. Their political arm is an ancestor of the modern-day Likud.-History:...

 party and a signatory of Israel's Declaration of Independence. He was against the internationalization of Jerusalem and presented his views on this matter to the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

in 1947.