Moshe Sharett

Moshe Sharett (Hebrew: משה שרת‎, born Moshe Shertok (Hebrew: משה שרתוק)‎ 16 October 1894 – 7 July 1965) was the second Prime Minister of Israel (1954–55), serving for a little under two years between David Ben-Gurion's two terms. He continued as Foreign Minister (1955–56) in the Mapai government. Sharett steered the government through a turbulent period, was an experienced diplomat, with a liberal policy, a conciliatory approach, and a modernising attitude to the West. The renewed war with the Arabs split the socialist Left commencing another period of instability.

Biography

Early life

Born in Kherson in the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine), Sharett emigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1906. In 1910 his family moved to Jaffa, and they became one of the founding families of Tel Aviv.

He graduated from the first class of the Herzliya Hebrew High School, even studying music at the Shulamit Conservatory. He then went off to Constantinople to study law at Istanbul University, the same university at which Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and David Ben-Gurion studied. However, his time there was cut short due to the outbreak of World War I. He subsequently served a commission as First Lieutenant in the Ottoman Army, as an interpreter.