Rachel Katznelson-Shazar, also known as Rachel Shazar, was an active figure in the Zionist movement.
Education
She graduated from Russian high school with honors at the age of 18. She also studied at the Academy for Jewish Studies in Saint St. Petersburg, where she met her future husband, Zalman Shazar - then known as Shneur Zalman Rubashov - whom she married in 1920.
Career
Her husband was Zalman Shazar, the third President of the State of Israel. Born Rachel Katznelson in 1885 (or possibly 1888) in the city of Babruysk, then in the Russian Empire and now in Belarus, into a traditional Jewish family. This gave her the possibility of going to university, which was only open to a small percentage of the Jewish community.
She was accepted to the Saint St. Petersburg University to study literature and history.
Katznelson emigrated to Ottoman Palestine, now Israel, in 1912 and was immediately active in a number of Zionist organizations, having previously joined the Labor Zionist movement in 1905 in her home town. In 1916, she was elected to the first Cultural Committee of the Labor Movement, alongside Berl Katznelson and Yitzhak Tabenkin (both also originally from Babruysk), and worked with them to enhance the education of workers.
Throughout her life, she was actively involved with the Histadrut and the Mapai party, and performed many public duties. Reuben Katznelson was the father of Shulamit Katznelson and Shmuel Tamir.
Membership
She was later elected as a member of the cultural committee of the Achdut Ha"avodah party and, in 1924, of the Histadrut. Katznelson"s brothers were Avraham Katznelson (one of the signatories of the Israeli declaration of independence), Joseph Katznelson (a companion of Ze"ev Jabotinsky and one of the Irgun"s two Chiefs of Illegal Immigration) and Reuben Katznelson (a member of the Jewish Legion and Joseph Trumpeldor"s sergeant and companion in the Battle of Gallipoli).