Who Is the Man Second from the Left as Ben-Gurion Declares Independence?

By Gedaliah Borvick

JERUSALEM — I recently scheduled a meeting with clients at Jerusalem’s First Station, and I sent them the address David Remez 4. When we met, our client asked if I knew anything about Remez. I recalled seeing his name in several books about the Yishuv (the pre-state Jewish community), but I never grasped how vital a role he played in establishing the State of Israel.

What did David Remez accomplish to merit having half a dozen streets across the country and a Haifa neighborhood named in his memory?

David Remez was born in 1886 in Belorussia, now known as Belarus. He studied law in Constantinople, Turkey, where he met David Ben Gurion and future president Yitzhak Ben Zvi, in what was to be a lifetime relationship. Newly married, Remez moved to Ottoman Palestine in 1913 and soon thereafter dove headfirst into politics, dedicating his life to creating the Jewish state.

A Renaissance man, possessing many talents and areas of knowledge, Remez achieved so much in his career:  From 1921 to 1929, Remez was the director of the Public Works Office of the Histadrut, the powerful workers union, and headed the national construction company, later known as Solel Boneh, which purchased land and built housing projects.

He was a founding member of Ben Gurion’s Mapai party and served on Tel Aviv’s city council from 1921 to 1925. Starting in 1930, Remez served for many years as Secretary General of the Histadrut and founded many subsidiaries, such as Zim Shipping and the Mashbir department stores.

From 1944 until 1948, Remez was chairman of the Va’ad Leumi, the Jewish National Council, which was the shadow government of the Jewish community and the official representative of the Yishuv to the British Mandate government. Owing to his influential position, Remez was one of 2,700 Jews arrested by the British authorities on “Black Saturday” June 29, 1946, in response to the elite Palmach unit’s destruction of 10 bridges.  He spent several months in the Latrun detention camp.

Once the State of Israel was declared in 1948, Remez became the first Minister of Transportation. In this capacity, he opened Lod (later renamed Ben Gurion) Airport and also helped create the country’s telephone and postal service. In 1950, Remez became the Minister of Education and Culture.

Remez loved the Hebrew language. He wrote poetry and coined many new Hebrew words, such as ‘ramzor’ for traffic light, which came from remez-or, a light signal, and chose the biblical phrase (Hosea 11:7) ‘El Al’ as the name for Israel’s national airline. A talented linguist who valued wit, puns and brevity, some of his most famous speeches were only one sentence long.

David Remez worked closely with Golda Meir in the Histadrut, where she served on the executive committee before leading the political department of the Jewish Agency in 1946. Remez and Meir were joined at the hip for many years. As Remez’s grandson Gideon Remez, a Sokolov (Israel’s version of the Pulitzer) Prize winner, explained, their relationship was “the most guarded, and yet most well-known, state secret.”

Remez passed away suddenly in 1951 at the age of 64. His son Aharon followed in his footsteps, serving as the second commander of the Israeli Air force and later as a civil servant, politician, and diplomat.

David Remez’s contributions to the establishment of Israel are legendary, and his legacy of unwavering dedication to the Jewish people remains an integral part of our nation’s history.
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Gedaliah Borvick is the founder of My Israel Home, a real estate agency focused on helping people from abroad buy and sell homes in Israel.