Mordechai Namir (hebräisch מרדכי נמיר; February 23, 1897 - February 22, 1975) was an Israeli politician, who served as the mayor of Tel Aviv, a Knesset member and government minister, as well as being one of the heads of the Labour Zionist movement.
Early life
Namir was born in Ukraine as Mordechai Nemirovsky. He studied at a cheder and graduated from the Odessa University, where he studied law and economics.[1]
In 1924 he was arrested by the Soviet authorities for his work for Zionism, and upon his release made aliyah. In mandatory Palestine, he worked for the Davar newspaper.
Political career
Namir became the secretary for the Ahdut HaAvoda party in 1926, a position he held until 1930. From 1929 to 1935 he also served as the direction of the statistics department in the Histadrut.
From 1935 he was a member of Tel Aviv's city council and from 1936 - secretary of the workers' union in the city. Additionally, he was a member of the Haganah command in the city and later in all of mandatory Palestine.
From 1950 to 1956, Namir served as the general secretary of the Histadrut. He was elected as a Knesset member of the Mapai party in 1951 and remained one until 1969, when the 6th Knesset was disbanded. During this time he was also the CEO of the government-owned company Amidar (1959-59) and Minister of Labor during the same years.
Namir was also the mayor of Tel Aviv between 1960 and 1969, and part of a major expressway in the city (Highway 2) was named after him.
Between 1949 and 1950 he was also on a diplomatic mission to Eastern Europe and Moscow, about which he wrote a book in 1971 (A Mission in Moscow: A Honeymoon and Years of Wrath).