Background
He was born Isaac Shimshelivitz on November 24, 1884, in the Ukrainian town of Poltava. He was the eldest son of Zvi Shimshelevich, who later took the name Shimshi.
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He was born Isaac Shimshelivitz on November 24, 1884, in the Ukrainian town of Poltava. He was the eldest son of Zvi Shimshelevich, who later took the name Shimshi.
Following his studies at Galatasaray High School in Istanbul, from 1912 to 1914 Ben-Zvi studied law at Istanbul University, together with the future Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion.
Ben-Zvi visited Palestine in 1904 and on his return became a founder of Poale Zion, the Labor Zionist Movement. His efforts to help Jews defend themselves against pogroms in 1905 led to his banishment to Siberia, but he escaped and in 1907 settled in Palestine. There, he and David Ben-Gurion founded Hashomer, a Jewish self-defense organization, which later developed into the Haganah. Itzhak and Ben-Gurion returned to Palestine, but at the outbreak of World War I were expelled for their Zionist activities. From exile in the United States they organized the American Battalion of the Jewish Legion. Ben-Zvi returned to Palestine in 1918 to fight with the Jewish Legion in the British Army. After 1920, while Palestine was governed by Great Britain under a mandate from the League of Nations, Ben-Zvi held prominent positions in the Yishuv, the Jewish community. He was elected to the presidium of Va'ad Leumi (the Jewish National Council) in 1920 and became its chairman in 1931 and its president in 1944. He helped found the Histadrut (the General Federation of Labor) in 1920 and participated in the founding of the Jewish Agency. Ben-Zvi was elected to the provisional state council of Israel on May 14, 1948, and to the Knesset (parliament) on the Mapai (Socialist Workers) Party ticket in 1949. Ben-Zvi was elected president of Israel on December 8, 1952, succeeding Chaim Weizmann. He was reelected on October 28, 1957. Ben-Zvi was the author of Palestine Under 400 Years of Ottoman Rule (1955); Lost and Regained Tribes of Israel (1952); and The Moslem World and the Arab World (1937). He served as the director (1947 - 1952) of the Institute for the Research of Jewish Communities in the Middle East, which he founded and which, now known as the Ben-Zvi Institute, is part of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He died at his home in Jerusalem on April 23, 1963.
Ben-Zvi signed Israel’s Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948, and was elected to the Knesset the following year. He became president of Israel in 1952, a position he held until his death. Also a noted scholar of Middle Eastern history and archaeology, he founded the Institute for Research of Jewish Middle Eastern Communities (now the Ben-Zvi Institute) in 1948 and directed it until 1960. He wrote a history of the Jews, The Exiled and the Redeemed (1958).
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Upon returning to Palestine in 1918, Ben-Zvi married Rachel Yanait. They had two sons: Amram and Eli.
