Dr. Aharon Barth

Zoltan Kluger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• Was born in Berlin, Germany, on March 26, 1890.
• In his youth, he was educated at a classical gymnasium and later studied economics and law at the University of Berlin and the University of Heidelberg.
• As a young man, he served as legal advisor to his relatives’ copper factory, owned by the Hirsch family.
• In 1933, with the rise of the Nazis to power, he immigrated to the Land of Israel.
  In 1934, he passed the certification exams for foreign lawyers and opened a law office.
• In 1938, he was appointed a member of the management of the Anglo-Palestine Bank, and from 1947 until his death in 1957, he served as the bank’s General Manager. During this period, the bank changed its name to Bank Leumi.
• As the General Manager of Bank Leumi, which was responsible for issuing the State of Israel’s currency, he signed the first two series of banknotes issued to the public.
• Beginning in 1920, he was active in Zionist affairs. He was elected head of the Mizrachi movement in Germany and served on the board of Keren Hayesod.
• In 1921, the 12th Zionist Congress, held in Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), appointed Dr. Barth as legal advisor to the Congress. He held this position for 17 years and was instrumental in shaping the legal framework of the Zionist institutions.
• In 1946, he was elected President of the Zionist Supreme Court and held this position until his death.
• When he fell ill, he wrote his book Our Generation Facing the Questions of Eternity, which became a popular work of Jewish thought among the Dati-Leumi youth during the second half of the 20th century.
• He passed away on June 2, 1957, and was buried at the Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery.

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