Zvi Guershoni ^People

Born in Bälti in the Beletsky Uyed of the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire (today in Moldova), Guershoni attended a Hebrew gymnasium. He was a Maccabi HaTzair member before joining Gordonia. He became a member of the Gordonia leadership in Romania, and was also a member ofthe central committee of the Romanian branch of HeHalutz. In 1936 he made aliyah to Mandatory Palestine, where he initially worked in orchards in Rehovot. Between 1937 and 1940he workedin the Port of Haifa, before being amongst the founders of kibbutz Nir Am in 1943. Between 1946 and 1947 he travelled to Holocaust survivor camps in Europe.During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War he served as secretary of the Negev Settlements Committee, and was later a member of Mapai-affiliated Ihud HaKvutzot VeHaKibbutzim movement, serving as its secretary of internal affairs. He also studiedeconomics at the Hebrew University ofJerusalem. He then became one of the foun- ders of the Nir-Am kibbutz in theNegev desert (1943), secretary of the Negev Colonial Committee during the war of liberation. He also served as an emissary in the refugee camps of European Holocaust survivors (1946-1947). An active member of the Ihud Kibbutz Association, Guershoni alsoserved as the organization's secretary of internalaffairs. In 1969 he was elected to the Knesset on the Alignment list. He was re-elected in 1973, but died in office on 1September 1976.