Moshe Sharett — prime minister with roots in the Russian Empire
Moshe Sharett was born Moshe Shertok on 15 October 1894 in Kherson, in the Russian Empire, now in Ukraine. In 1906, when Moshe was twelve (1908 according to one account), his family moved to Ottoman Palestine, living for two years in a rented house in the Arab village of Ein Sinya, north of Ramallah, where he learned Arabic, and from 1910 in Jaffa; the family was among the founders of Tel Aviv.
He was among the first pupils of the Herzliya Gymnasium in Tel Aviv and went on to study law in Constantinople. During the First World War he served in the Ottoman army as an interpreter and officer. In 1922–24 he studied at the London School of Economics and from 1925 was deputy editor of the Histadrut daily Davar and editor of its English-language weekly; he was a member of Ahdut HaAvoda and later of Mapai.
In 1931 he became secretary of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, the leading body of the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine, and in 1933 its head, a post second only to that of David Ben-Gurion, the agency's chairman. He held it until 1948. During the Second World War he was instrumental in establishing the Jewish Brigade within the British Army (1944), and in 1946 he was among the Jewish leaders interned by the British authorities, spending four months in the Latrun detention camp.
In May 1948 he signed Israel's Declaration of Independence, adopting the Hebrew surname Sharett, and became the country's first Minister of Foreign Affairs, establishing diplomatic relations with many states and helping to secure Israel's admission to the United Nations. Elected to the first Knesset in 1949 for Mapai, he remained a member until 1961. When Ben-Gurion withdrew from office, Sharett became Israel's second Prime Minister on 26 January 1954, keeping the foreign ministry, and served until Ben-Gurion's return in November 1955. He remained Foreign Minister until 18 June 1956, when he resigned. In 1960 he was elected chairman of the World Zionist Organization and of the Jewish Agency.
He died in Jerusalem on 7 July 1965, aged seventy. His diaries were published after his death.
"Came to Ottoman Palestine with his family in 1906 (1908 by another account); the family lived first in the village of Ein Sinya and from 1910 in Jaffa."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Kherson, Kherson Governorate (now Ukraine)
Born Moshe Shertok in Kherson, in the Russian Empire, in 1894, he came to Ottoman Palestine with his family in 1906, at the age of twelve.
Israel's second PM; spoke fluent Russian.
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Kherson, Kherson Governorate (now Ukraine). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.