MAZUR, ELIYAHU

MAZUR, ELIYAHU (1889–1973), communal worker and businessman in Poland and Israel, son of Ẓevi Meir Mazur, rabbi in Zagorow and later in Warsaw. His public activity encompassed political, economic, and social fields. He was a member of both the world executive of agudat israel and of its executive board in Poland. He served as president of the Jewish community council (kehillah) of Warsaw from 1931 to 1937, when maurici meisel was appointed commissar by the government. He also acted as director of the administrative council of the Ḥakhmei Lublin yeshivah. Mazur was the largest importer of rice in Poland, and he established riceprocessing factories in the port of Gdynia. He was a member of the board of the Polish chamber of commerce. In 1940 he escaped from Poland and immigrated to Ereẓ Israel, where he continued to pursue his public and economic activities. He set up a diamond factory with his brothers in Tel Aviv, becoming a central figure in the country's diamond industry. In 1948 he was elected to the first knesset as a delegate of Agudat Israel. (Yitzchak Arad)