Yehuda Leib Maimon


Yehuda Leib Maimon was an Israeli rabbi, politician and leader of the Religious Zionist movement. He was Israel's first Minister of Religions.

Biography

Yehuda Leib Fishman was born in Mărculești, in the Soroksky Uyezd of the Bessarabia Governorate, Maimon studied in a number of yeshivot and received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, the author of the Aruch HaShulchan. He was one of the founders of the Mizrachi movement in 1902. By this time Maimon had moved to the Russian Empire, where he was arrested several times for Zionist activity. He was a delegate to the ninth Zionist Congress in 1909, and attended every one until Israeli independence in 1948.
In 1913, Maimon immigrated to Palestine, but was expelled during World War I. He moved to the United States, where he organised the Mizrachi movement.
His sister, Ada also served as a member of the Knesset for Mapai. One of his great grand-daughters is the model Nina Brosh.

Political career

After returning to Mandate Palestine in 1919, Maimon became leader of Mizrachi in the country and together with Abraham Isaac Kook he helped establish the Chief Rabbinate. He was elected to the board of the Jewish Agency in 1935. In 1937, he founded Mossad Harav Kook, a religious research foundation and notable publishing house named in honor of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.
In 1946, he was imprisoned by the British in Latrun during Operation Agatha. The British detained him on the Jewish Sabbath, and he objected to riding in a vehicle on the Sabbath, and offered instead to walk to a nearby police station. The British refused his offer and forced him into a waiting car.
Maimon helped draft Israel's declaration of independence, and was one of the people to sign it. He was appointed Minister of Religions, and also as Minister of War Victims in the provisional government set up immediately after independence. He was elected to the first Knesset in 1949 as a member of the United Religious Front and retained his ministerial role in the first and second governments. He was the driving force behind a failed effort to reestablish the Sanhedrin. He lost his seat in the 1951 elections.

Awards and recognition

In 1958, he was awarded the Israel Prize for his contribution to Rabbinical literature.