Yosef Sprinzak

Who was Yosef Sprinzak?

Yosef Sprinzak was a leading Zionist activist in the first half of the 20th century, an Israeli politician, and the first Speaker of the Knesset, a role he held from 1949 until his death in 1959.

Sprinzak was born in Moscow, Russia but following the expulsion of Jews in 1891 moved with his family to Kishinev where he was a founder of the Tze'irei Zion. He began medical school at the American University in Beirut in 1908 and settled in Palestine in 1910, during the Second Aliyah.

Along with Eliezer Kaplan Sprinzak headed Hapoel Hatzair a Zionist socialist faction formed in 1905 and one of the organisations that consolidated to form Mapai in 1930. Its members were pro-British and supported Chaim Weizmann. He was a founder of the Histadrut in 1920 and acted as secretary general of the organisation from 1945 to 1949.

Sprinzak was elected to the position of speaker of the provisional parliament on 15 July 1948, a role in which he helped lay the foundations of Israel's parliamentarism. He was elected to the first Knesset in 1949 as a member of Mapai, and became the Speaker of the new body. He was re-elected and remained speaker in both the second and third Knessets.