Scholar, author, third President of Israel (1963-1973). Born in Mir, Russia, and raised in a Hasidic environment, he attended the Academy of Jewish Sciences at Leningrad as well as the Universities of Freiburg, Strasbourg, and Berlin. Shazar settled in Palestine in 1924. He served as editor of the daily Davar until 1948, and was a leading organizer of Israel’s labor movement. As Israel’s first Minister of Education, Shazar introduced general compulsory education. He also held educational posts in the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization. He was a man of widely varied interests and impressive scholarship. He was a gifted and persuasive speaker, and authored a number of scholarly works on biblical archeology and messianic figures.