Uri Gordon

Uri Gordon was born on April 4,1935 in Tel Aviv. At the tender age of three he was taken with polio. Even though he was in the hospital a great deal of time, he refused to let his handicap keep him from leading a productive life. He was a student and guide at "Hanoar Haoved" in Borochov St. Givatayim, and later at the age of 17, he became a member of Kibbutz Mishmar David near Jerusalem.

In the 1960s, Uri became the Labor party's Young Generation leader. He spearheaded the campaign by passing a resolution stating that every Zionist leader must personally commit him or herself to immigrate to Israel.

In the 1970s, he became head of the Zionist Federation's Next Generation unit and was later sent as a "shaliach" to the United States. He founded "Telem" (Movement for Zionist Fulfillment), which focused on Jewish-Zionist education and immigration to Israel. A membership condition of Telem was a personal commitment to immigrate to Israel; and indeed, a very large number of graduates of the movement moved to Israel. Telem expanded and spread all across North America.

On behalf of the Zionist Movement in the United States, he established a framework with Israeli and Jewish American academics and intellectuals, and held symposiums with the goal of creating an understanding and a closer relationship between Israelis and the Diaspora.

After his return to Israel, he was elected in 1983 as a member of the Executive Board of the Jewish Agency and head of the Jewish Agency's Youth Aliyah Department. In this capacity he was responsible for the absorption of thousands of Ethiopian youth who arrived during "Operation Moses".

In 1984, he initiated and established the Israeli Forum, a voluntary body which took representatives from all sectors of the Israeli society and which aimed to create a new connection between the young leadership in Israel and their counterparts abroad. A founding conference was held at the Moriah Hotel at the Dead Sea. Forum members engaged in various topics such as immigrant absorption, mutual relations between businesses in Israel and abroad, trips to Israel with Zionism and the centrality of Israel being the focal point.

In 1986, Uri was called by the current General Secretary of Histadrut to form a Youth wing in the organization. For six years he established Young Generation clubs, mainly in development towns. With great momentum, he provided a conceptual basis for an ideological and organized entity.

In 1987, Uri was elected to head the Jewish Agency's Department of Immigration and Absorption. He worked to combat emigration from Israel and the drop-out of Soviet Jews who left the USSR on visas for Israel but chose to make their home elsewhere - mainly the United States.

In the same year, as Head of the Youth Aliyah Department, he was a leader and co-founder of the educational community – Nitzana, a new settlement near the Israeli - Egyptian border in the Negev.

In May 1991, Uri oversaw the second immigration campaign of Ethiopian Jews, Operation Solomon, which consisted of14,000 Ethiopian Jews. During his tenure, he also oversaw the absorption of almost 500,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

In 1992 he was elected for another term as Head of the Youth Aliyah Department.

In 1998 he was elected president of the Zionist Council in Israel.

In the year 2000, he initiated the idea of ​​Israel's First Zionist Congress, which convened in Jerusalem of May the same year.

Uri earned a BA in Jewish Studies from the University of the Conservative Movement in Los Angeles.

He was married in 1968 to Rachel Carmel, secretary to Israel's Foreign Minister, Abba Eban; they had three daughters; Einat, Yael and Noa.

He has published dozens of articles on Zionism, the Jewish people, relations between the State of Israel and Diaspora Jewry and booklets such as "Towards a New Jewish Agency" and "Shabbat at the house of my Grandfather. "

Uri Gordon, died after a long struggle with illness on Sunday morning, July 30, 2000 - at Tel Hashomer Hospital.

Blessed be his memory.