David Remez
Encyclopedia
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i politician, the country's first Minister of Transportation, and a signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence.
Biography
Remez was born in the village of KopysKopys
Kopys is an urban-type settlement in Vitsebsk Voblast, Belarus. First references are dated by 1059It is the birthplace of the current leader of the country, Alexander Lukashenko....
in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(now in Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
) in 1886 and attended high school there. He studied Law in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
before starting work as a teacher. He moved to Ottoman 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....
in 1913, and worked as an agricultural laborer in Ben Shemen
Ben Shemen
Ben Shemen is a moshav in central Israel. Located around four kilometres east of Lod, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 627....
, Be'er Tuvia
Be'er Tuvia
Be'er Tuvia is a moshav in the Southern District of Israel near the city of Kiryat Malakhi. It is affiliated with the Be'er Tuvia Regional Council....
, Karkur and Zikhron Ya'akov.
Political career
He became involved in politicsPolitics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
and trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ism soon after the Mandate Era began, serving as Director of the Public Works Office of the Histadrut
Histadrut
HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael , known as the Histadrut, is Israel's organization of trade unions. Established in December 1920 during the British Mandate for Palestine, it became one of the most powerful institutions of the State of Israel.-History:The Histadrut was founded in...
from 1921 to 1929 as well as on Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
's city council from 1921 to 1925, and was a founding member of David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion
' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
's Mapai
Mapai
Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968...
party. He became Secretary of the Histadrut in 1930, a position he retained until 1946, and also chaired the Jewish National Council from 1944-1949.
Having signed Israel's declaration of independence, Remez was appointed Minister of Transportation in David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion
' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
's provisional government
Provisional government of Israel
The provisional government of Israel was the temporary cabinet which governed Israel from shortly before independence until the formation of the first government in March 1949 following the first Knesset elections in January that year....
on 14 May 1948, a position he retained after the formation of the first government
First government of Israel
The first government of Israel formed by David Ben-Gurion on 8 March 1949, a month and a half after the elections for the first Knesset. His Mapai party formed a coalition with the United Religious Front, the Progressive Party, the Sephardim and Oriental Communities and the Democratic List of...
following the first Knesset elections
Israeli legislative election, 1949
Elections for the Constituent Assembly were held in newly independent Israel on 25 January 1949. Voter turnout was 86.9%. Two days after its first meeting on 14 February 1949, legislators voted to change the name of the body to the Knesset...
in 1949. When the first government collapsed in November 1950, Remez became Education Minister taking over from Zalman Shazar
Zalman Shazar
Zalman Shazar was an Israeli politician, author. and poet. Shazar served as the third President of Israel from 1963 to 1973.-Biography:...
. He died in office in May 1951, the first Israeli minister to do so. His Knesset seat was taken by Menachem Cohen
Menachem Cohen
-Biography:Born in Jerusalem during the Mandate era, Cohen helped organise illegal Jewish immigration from Syria. He worked as a director of the Neighbourhoods Department on Tel Aviv Workers Council, and was a representative of the neighbourhoods on Tel Aviv City Council.In the 1949 Knesset...
.
Commemoration
After his death several places in Israel were named after him, among them the HaifaHaifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
neighborhood Ramot Remez and Remez Square in Jerusalem. His son, Aharon Remez
Aharon Remez
Aluf Aharon Remez was an Israeli civil servant, politician and diplomat, and the second commander of the Israeli Air Force.-Biography:Born in Tel Aviv in 1919, Remez's father David was Israel's first Minister of Transportation. He joined the Haganah in 1936. Three years later he was sponsored by...
was the second commander of the Israeli Air Force
Israeli Air Force
The Israeli Air Force is the air force of the State of Israel and the aerial arm of the Israel Defense Forces. It was founded on May 28, 1948, shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence...
.