Meir Argov was a Zionist

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

 activist, Israel

Israel

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

i politician and a signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence.

Biography

Born in Rîbniţa

Rîbnita

Rîbnița, also spelled Râbnița is a city in Moldova. The city is under the administration of the breakaway government of the Transnistria. According to the 2004 Census in Transnistria, it has a population of 53,648. Rîbniţa is situated in the northern half of Transnistria, on the left bank of the...

 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...

 (today in Transnistria

Transnistria

Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...

/Moldova

Moldova

Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...

), Argov studied at a heder and then at Kiev University

Kiev University

Taras Shevchenko University or officially the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv , colloquially known in Ukrainian as KNU is located in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It is the third oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and Kharkiv University. Currently, its structure...

. He became involved in Zionist activism in his youth, heading the HeHalutz

Hehalutz

Hechalutz was an association of Jewish youth whose aim was to train its members to settle in the Land of Israel, which became an umbrella organization of the pioneering Zionist youth movements....

 movement in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, and becoming a member of the Tzeiri Zion central committee in 1917. He was arrested for Zionist activities in 1922, and again in 1924, after which he was expelled from the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

In 1927 he immigrated

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 Mandate Palestine and worked in agriculture. A secretary of the Petah Tikva

Petah Tikva

Petah Tikva known as Em HaMoshavot , is a city in the Center District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv.According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2009, the city's population stood at 209,600. The population density is approximately...

 Workers council between 1929 and 1939, he became a member of the Jewish National Council in 1930, and was elected onto Petah Tikva's municipal council in 1931. In 1940 he volunteered for the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 and fought in the Jewish Brigade

Jewish Brigade

The Jewish Infantry Brigade Group was a military formation of the British Army that served in Europe during the Second World War. The brigade was formed in late 1944, and its personnel fought the Germans in Italy...

 in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

Argov (still under the name Grabovsky) was one of the people to sign Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, and immediately joined the Provisional State Council

Provisional State Council

The Provisional State Council was the temporary legislature of Israel from shortly before independence until the election of the first Knesset in January 1949...

, representing 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...

. He was elected to the first Knesset in 1949

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...

, and retained his seat in elections in 1951

Israeli legislative election, 1951

Elections for the second Knesset were held in Israel on 30 July 1951. Voter turnout was 75.1%.-Results:¹ Rostam Bastuni, Avraham Berman and Moshe Sneh left Mapam and set up the Left Faction. Bastuni later returned to Mapam whilst Berman and Sneh joined Maki. Hannah Lamdan and David Livschitz left...

, 1955

Israeli legislative election, 1955

Elections for the third Knesset were held in Israel on 26 July 1955. Voter turnout was 82.8%.-Results:Mapai retained its plurality in the Knesset, although its share of the vote dropped by 5.1 and its share of seats dropped from 47 to 40...

, 1959

Israeli legislative election, 1959

Elections for the fourth Knesset were held in Israel on 3 November 1959. Voter turnout was 81.5%.-Results:¹ The General Zionists and the Progressive Party merged to form the Liberal Party....

 and 1961

Israeli legislative election, 1961

Elections for the fifth Knesset were held in Israel on 15 August 1961. Voter turnout was 81.6%.-Results:¹ Eight MKs broke away from Mapai to establish Rafi² Herut and the Liberal Party merged to form Gahal...

, serving as chair of the important Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee

Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee

The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is a permanent Knesset committee which oversees key Foreign and Defense areas, including the drafting of legislation, supervision over related government ministries and the approval of their budgests...

 from 1951 onwards. He died in office in 1963. His seat was taken by Jenia Taversky

Jenia Taversky

Jenia Taversky was an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Mapai.-Biography:Born Jenia Ginsburg in 1904 in the Baranovichi in the Russian Empire , Taversky studied at the University of Warsaw and at a Social Work school in Berlin. In 1923 she made aliyah to Mandate...

.

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