Zvi Ben Rueven Shimshi, father of Israel President Itzhak Ben Zvi, died here today at the age of 91. Funeral services will be held tomorrow.
Mr. Shimshi, a pioneer Zionist, was born in Smorgon, Poland, but spent two decades of his young adult life in Poltava, Russia, as an active Zionist worker. In 1908 he was deported to Siberia because of the Zionist activities of his son, Itzhak, and his own activities. The future President of Israel escaped the Czarist police. In 1923 Mr. Shimshi came to Jerusalem, where he spent the remainder of his life.
He published his memoirs of Zionist work in Poltava and Siberia and contributed a number of articles in Hebrew and Yiddish to publications in Russia and Palestine. Besides his son Itzhak, he is survived by another son, the famous Hebrew author, A. Reuveni.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
