Haim Corfu

Haim Corfu
Date of birth	6 January 1921(1921-01-06)
Place of birth	Jerusalem, Mandate Palestine
Knessets	7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th
Party	Likud
Former parties	Gahal
Ministerial posts (current in bold)	Minister of Transportation

Haim Corfu (Hebrew: חיים קורפו‎, born 6 January 1921) is a former Israeli politician.

Biography

Corfu was born in Jerusalem in 1921. He studied in religious schools and yeshivas and attended a religious teachers seminary. In 1937 he joined the Irgun and was a member of the Irgun command in Jerusalem. During that time he also played as a striker for Beitar Jerusalem.^[1] He used his training as an electrician to design letter-bombs, exploding chocolate bonbonnières and exploding overcoats.^[2] He was in charge of mining the income tax offices on February 26, 1944.^[3] He was subsequently interned in Africa by the British, where he also put his skills as an electrician to use in an attempt to escape.^[4]

After the establishment of the State of Israel he studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was certified as a lawyer. From 1967 to 1969 he was a member of Jerusalem city council.

In 1969 he was elected to the seventh Knesset for Gahal, and was subsequently elected to the eighth through twelfth Knessets for Likud. In the seventh and eighth Knessets he was a member of the finance committee and in the eighth he was also a member of the subcommittee for the defense budget. In the ninth and twelfth Knessets he was a member of the foreign affairs & defense committee and in the twelfth he was the chairman of the house committee as well.

In the 19th through 22nd governments he served as transportation minister. He supported the consolidation of Israel Railways with the Ports Authority.^[5] In 1986 he was invited to attend a transportation convention in Morocco and thus became the first Israeli cabinet member to be asked to attend a conference in an Arab country other than Egypt.^[6] In 1987 he voted for a bill to grant a blanket amnesty to the Jewish Underground prisoners.^[7] In April 1992 he resigned from the Knesset to become chairman of the Israeli Airports Authority, a position he held until 1996.

References

1. ^ Dayan, Shai (2004-07-08). "Team history". Betar.net. http://www.beitar-jerusalem.net/articles.php?mode=showItem&sectionID=123&id=437. Retrieved 2008-06-10.  (Hebrew)
2. ^ Golan, Zev (2003). Free Jerusalem: Heroes, Heroines and Rogues Who Created the State of Israel. Devora Publishing. pp. 136–137. ISBN 1930143540. 
3. ^ Lapidot, Yehuda. "The beginning". Daat. http://www.daat.ac.il/DAAT/history/belahav/2a-2.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-10.  (Hebrew)
4. ^ Lapidot, Yehuda. "The Latrun detention camp". Daat. http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/history/haifa/7-2.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-10.  (Hebrew)
5. ^ Etzioni, Amir (1999-06). "Reforming Israel's seaports". Policy Studies (41). http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:AHD9m4t__hYJ:www.israeleconomy.org/policystudies/ps41.pdf+haim+corfu&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=il&client=firefox-a. Retrieved 2008-06-10. 
6. ^ Mahler, Gregory S. (1990). Israel after Begin. SUNY Press. pp. 165. ISBN 079140367X. 
7. ^ Lustick, Ian (1988). For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. Council on Foreign Relations. pp. 11. ISBN 0876090366. 

External links

• Haim Corfu Knesset website

Persondata
Name	Corfu, Haim
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1921-01-06
Place of birth	Jerusalem, Mandate Palestine
Date of death
Place of death