Former Knesset Speaker and former Minister Shlomo Hillel passed away today (Monday) at the age of 97. Among other things, he served as Interior Minister and Minister of Police in the 1970s, and was the 11th Knesset Speaker in the Shamir-Peres government in the 1980s. In 1998 he won the Israel Prize.
Hillel was born in Iraq, and at the age of 11 immigrated to Israel with his family and studied at the Herzliya Gymnasium. After that, he began higher education and studied a degree in political science, economics and public administration at the Hebrew University.
He is one of the members of the defense known to the public, and in an interview he gave to Israel today, he recalls the days when the defense took care of weapons: “The Ayalon Institute is one of the great things I was involved in in my defense,” The military of defense, which was then in its infancy. In 1945, when I was the center of the Kibbutz Maagan Michael farm, I was invited by Yosef Avidar, one of the defense chiefs and its deputy chief of staff.
Hillel was then appointed to be the commander of the IMI and at the end of the war in Europe said there was a chance they would decide to establish a Jewish state, then our problem would be an invasion of Arab armies, so we had to build a stronger and more organized army. We were forced to build a factory 9 meters underground and About 100 meters from Rehovot train station.
“We worked in this factory and maintained the kibbutz, so that if the British came they would see a normal place with young people and children. We got the production machines on roads not roads from Poland before being occupied by the Nazis. The factory produced 4 million bullets by the end of 1949. After we left, we still had to “Maintain confidentiality,” said Shlomo Hillel.
It also has a significant part in the Aliyah B project – the illegal immigration. “I came to the Second Aliyah Institute in 1946 and went to Iraq for the first time,” he says. “I was an emissary of the organization there for a year, mainly in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and Kirkuk. I contacted the pioneering movement in the underground of Iraqi Jews. “A total of 20,000 people were involved in this matter, and the activity was all over the country. At first I was involved in training and from a certain stage I coordinated the illegal aliyah.”
Already at a relatively young age, a former Knesset member made his first steps in his public activity, which lasted for decades. In the early years of the state, Shlomo Hillel was one of the leaders in the operations to bring the Jews of Arab countries and Iran to Israel, and at the same time he was one of the founders of Kibbutz Maagan Michael.
He was first elected to the Knesset in 1952, and served in it for seven years. The former Speaker of the Knesset was a pioneer of Israeli diplomacy in Africa, and in 1959 was appointed the first ambassador to Guinea, and later served as ambassador to other African countries.
At the end of his diplomatic activity, he returned to politics and was elected to the Knesset in 1974, where he served for 18 consecutive years. During his time in the Knesset, his decision to apply the Law of Return to Beta Israel is particularly memorable.
After retiring from the Knesset, Shlomo Hillel turned to new directions in his career, including: World Chairman of the Keren Hayesod and President of the Council for the Preservation of Heritage Sites in Israel. In the jubilee year of the state, Shlomo Hillel won the Israel Prize for his special contribution to society and the state.
The Speaker of the Knesset, MK Yariv Levin, praised him: “Israel is today saying goodbye to one of its nobles. A dedicated public figure, who worked hard for the restoration and construction of the state, and did much to encourage immigration and bring many immigrants to Israel with daring operations.”
He added: “The farewell to Shlomo Hillel is a farewell to an extraordinary Zionist leader, to whom the State of Israel owes much for his many years of public and diplomatic work. We will miss Shlomo Hillel’s inspiring leadership very much. I extend my condolences to his family.”