Zalman Shazar — president with roots in the Russian Empire
Zalman Shazar was Israel's third President (1963-1973) born in Mir (Russian Empire, now Belarus). A Labour Zionist leader, poet, and historian, he was one of the most intellectually distinguished figures among Israel's founding generation — a man who embodied the Russian-Jewish Zionist tradition at its most cultured.
Tracing the roots — Mir (Belarus)
Born in Mir (Russian Empire, now Belarus) in 1889 — the town of the famous Mir yeshiva, one of the great centres of Jewish learning in the Russian Empire — Shazar grew up immersed in Talmudic scholarship and Socialist Zionism before emigrating to Ottoman Palestine. His name and personality carry the full weight of the Russian-Jewish world that built Israel.
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Mir (Belarus). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.