Baruch Uziel

• Was born in Salonika, Greece, on August 1, 1901.
• As a child, he studied at the Talmud Torah of the Jewish community in his city.
• From a young age, he was involved in writing, and one of his first articles was published in the newspaper Il Imparcial, discussing the need to collect Sephardic folklore.
• In Salonika, he was a member of the Maccabi movement and co-founded the association “Machzikei HaIvrit” (“Supporters of Hebrew”) together with David Benvenisti and Shimon Nassim. The association promoted Hebrew culture and published HaTechiya, the first Hebrew newspaper in the city.
• In 1914, he immigrated to the Land of Israel with a group of young people from Salonika and studied at the Teacher's Seminary.
• In 1917, during World War I, he was exiled by the Turks to Damascus, Syria, due to his Greek citizenship.
• After the war, he returned to the country with the British conquest and worked as a teacher in Jerusalem, Rehovot, and Petah Tikva.
• At the same time, he completed his legal studies at the Mandatory School of Law in Jerusalem, and at the end of 1933 was recommended for a law license by the Government Legal Council.
• In January 1934, he began practicing law.
• In the years preceding the establishment of the State of Israel, he was active in bringing Jewish port workers from Salonika. He was also active in the Association of Greek Immigrants and served as Chairman of the Institute for the Study of Salonika Jewry.
• He was among the founders of the “Chalutzey HaMizrach” (later “Sefardim VeEdot HaMizrach”) organization in Jerusalem, through which he worked to ensure that Sephardic representatives would participate in the first Assembly of Representatives.
• Between 1930 and 1931, he served on the presidium of the Maccabi movement in Israel and headed the departments of Culture and Propaganda.
• He also took part in the founding assembly of the Zionist Youth movement held in Petah Tikva and was elected to the movement's secretariat.
• He was among the founders of the “Zionist Worker” movement and represented it in the Fourth Assembly of Representatives.
• He served as a Member of the Knesset in the fifth and sixth Knessets on behalf of the Israeli Liberal Party and was a member of the Education and Culture Committee and the Public Services Committee.
• Throughout his life, he wrote numerous articles and feuilletons published in the Hebrew newspapers Haaretz, Davar, HaPoel HaTzair, HaSha’ar, and HaMaccabi, as well as in the Sephardic newspapers Il Tiempo and La Renaissance Juive.
• He passed away on February 20, 1977.

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