Eliezer Kaplan (; ; 27 January 1891 – 13 July 1952) was a

Zionist Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

activist,

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i politician, one of the signatories of the

Israeli declaration of independence The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708), at the end of the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war phase and ...

and the country's first Minister of Finance and

Deputy Prime Minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a Minister (government), government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to th ...

Biography

Born in

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(today in

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

), Kaplan attended a heder and high school in

Łowicz Łowicz is a town in central Poland with 27,436 inhabitants (2021). It is situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. Together with a nearby station of Bednary, Łowicz is a major rail junction of central Poland, where the line from Warsaw splits into ...

.Eliezer Kaplan
Knesset He joined the Socialist Zionist Party in 1905, and was one of the founders of the ''Youth of Zion – Renewal'' movement in 1908, later being elected secretary of its Minsk Region branch in 1912. He also helped found the ''Youth of Zion'' movement in Russia in 1912 and was a member of its central committee. In 1917 he graduated from a Moscow polytechnic as a building engineer. In 1919 Kaplan was a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference. The following year he immigrated to

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

and was involved in merging ''Youth of Zion'' with Hapoel Hatzair to form Hitachdut. Following his participation in the Conference of the Zionist Federation in London, he was elected to the Zionist Executive Committee. Shortly afterwards he was sent to Berlin to run Hitachdut's world office. Kaplan returned to Mandatory Palestine in 1923 and joined the Histadrut's Office of Public Works. A director of the technical department of the

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

municipality between 1923 and 1925, he was elected to Tel Aviv city council in 1925, remaining on the council until 1933. That year he joined the board of the Jewish Agency for Israel and served as its treasurer until 1948. A member of the Assembly of Representatives, on 14 May 1948 Kaplan was one of the people to sign the

, and was immediately appointed Minister of Finance in the

provisional government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, a transitional government or provisional leadership, is a temporary government formed to manage a period of transition, often following state collapse, revoluti ...

. He was elected to the first Knesset as a member of

Mapai Mapai (, an abbreviation for , ''Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael'', ) was a Labor Zionist and democratic socialist political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in January ...

, and retained the Finance Ministry post, also becoming Minister of Trade and Industry in Ben-Gurion's first government. In the second government the Trade and Industry portfolio was given to Yaakov Geri, but Kaplan remained Finance Minister. He retained his seat and portfolio following the 1951 elections, and in June 1952 became the country's first Deputy Prime Minister. However, he died three weeks later.

Commemoration

The Kaplan Medical Center in

Rehovot Rehovot (, / ) is a city in the Central District (Israel), Central District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. In it had a population of . Etymology Israel Belkind, founder of the Bilu (movement), Bilu movement, proposed the name "Rehovot ...

built in 1953, the Kiryat Eliezer suburb of Netanya, the Eliezer neighbourhood of Kfar Saba, Kaplan Street in

, and Kaplan Street in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

's Kiryat HaMemshala (government complex) were all named in his honour. The , awarded for the increase of productivity, is named after him.

References

External links

* * The personal papers of Eliezer Kaplan are kept at th
Central Zionist Archives
in Jerusalem. The notation of the record group is A92. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kaplan, Eliezer 1891 births 1952 deaths Politicians from Minsk Jews from the Russian Empire Belarusian Jews Jewish Ukrainian politicians Ukrainian diplomats Jewish socialists Soviet emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Ukrainian emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Members of the Assembly of Representatives (Mandatory Palestine) Members of the 1st Knesset (1949–1951) Members of the 2nd Knesset (1951–1955) Signatories of the Israeli Declaration of Independence Mapai politicians Heads of the Jewish Agency for Israel Ministers of finance of Israel Immigrants of the Third Aliyah