Uri Zvi Greenberg
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| Uri Zvi Greenberg | |
|---|---|
| Date of birth | 22 September 1896 |
| Place of birth | Galicia, Austria-Hungary |
| Year of Aliyah | 1924 |
| Date of death | 8 May 1981 |
| Knesset(s) | 1st |
| Party | Herut |
Uri Zvi Greenberg (Hebrew: אורי צבי גרינברג, born 22 September 1896, died 8 May 1981) was an Israeli writer and politician.
[edit] Biography
Greenberg was born into a well-known Hasdic family and raised in Lviv, then in Austria-Hungary (today in Ukraine). He began writing poetry, and some of his work in both Yiddish and Hebrew was published by the time he was 20.
In 1915 he was drafted into the army to fight in the First World War, but deserted in 1917. After returning to Lviv, he was witness to the pogroms of November 1918, and later moved to Warsaw and Berlin, before emigrating to Mandate Palestine in 1924.
After arriving in Palestine, Greenberg was initially a contributor to Davar, one of the main newspapers of the Labour Zionist movement. However, by 1930 he had become a members of the Revisionist camp, representing the Revisionist movement at several Zionist congreses and in Poland. After the 1929 Hebron massacre he became more militant, and joined both the Irgun and Lehi.
Greenberg was in Poland when the Second World War began in 1939, but managed to escape back to Palestine. However, the rest of his family was killed in the Holocaust.
Following Israeli independence in 1948 he joined Menachem Begin's Herut movement, and was elected to the first Knesset in 1949. He lost his seat in the 1951 elections, and following the Six-Day War he joined the Movement for Greater Israel, which advocated Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.
Greenberg was awarded the Israel Prize in 1957 for his contribution to Hebrew literature.
