Yisrael Kessar

Yisrael Kessar was born in Sana'a, Yemen, in 1931 and immigrated to Israel with his family at age two. He attended school in Jerusalem and, both before and after Israel's War of Independence, studied and worked at a youth center for new immigrants.[4]

Kessar began his political activity at age 21 as one of the leaders of the department for Jews from Yemen within Mapai, the dominant Labor-Zionist party of the era, and was elected to Mapai's secretariat in 1954.[6] He completed military service with the rank of captain in the Israel Defense Forces.[1] He earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1956 and completed a master's degree in Labor Studies at Tel Aviv University in 1972.[4]

From 1960 to 1961, Kessar worked as an assistant and adviser to Labor Minister Giora Josephtal. He then headed the Ministry of Labor's Department for Rehabilitation and Professional Direction from 1961 to 1966.[4]

Kessar joined the staff of the Histadrut in 1966. The General Federation of Labor was a powerful institution that predated the establishment of the state and had founded many of the country's social, health, and educational institutions.[3][4] Between 1966 and 1971, he chaired its Youth and Sports Department and Manpower Department. He subsequently served as Histadrut treasurer and, from 1977 to 1984, headed the Trade Union Division and served as deputy secretary-general under Yeruham Meshel.[4]

In 1984, Kessar was elected secretary-general of the Histadrut, making him the first Sephardi to hold the position.[3][4] His election came amid a gradual rise in Sephardi representation within the federation: five of the twenty members of the Central Committee were Sephardim in 1973, rising to twelve of forty-two by 1983, while 42.4 percent of the Executive Council's members were Sephardim that year.[3] In the November 1989 Histadrut elections, the Labor list won 55 percent of the vote, and Kessar formed his winning coalition with several moderate religious parties.[5]

As secretary-general, Kessar received a reserved eleventh place on the Labor Party's Knesset list and was elected to the Eleventh Knesset in 1984 on the Alignment list.[4][6] He also initiated the establishment of sports and recreation centers and cultural performance venues known as Mofet halls in cities across Israel.[6] A 1985 Histadrut convention was described at the time as a personal triumph, with Kessar receiving strong support for his faction's resolutions and personal praise from Prime Minister Shimon Peres.[7]

Kessar's leadership of the Histadrut was tested almost immediately by Israel's severe inflation crisis. When the government introduced its emergency economic stabilization plan in 1985, he publicly opposed measures that sharply reduced workers' wages, threatened a general strike, and confronted the government directly.[8] In a televised exchange with Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai on the program Moked, he declared: "A terrible injustice has been done to the working public. A wage-earning family in Israel will not be able to survive this terrible erosion." He also challenged Prime Minister Shimon Peres, asking: "How did your hand not tremble when you imposed 30% wage erosion?"[8]

After prolonged negotiations, cooperation among the government, workers, and employers became central to the plan's implementation.[8] Kessar's full cooperation with the government in carrying out the stabilization plan was subsequently identified as an important factor in its success.[2] He also agreed to co-sponsor a minimum-wage bill with Knesset members Ora Namir and Ran Cohen after the government had been unable to pass its own legislation.[7]

In February 1992, Kessar entered the Labor Party leadership contest against Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Ora Namir, receiving close to 20 percent of the vote.[4] After Rabin won, Kessar was appointed deputy prime minister and minister of transportation in the government formed on July 13, 1992.[6][9]

A later Institute for National Security Studies analysis presents Kessar's appointment as structurally important to transportation reform. It characterizes the Histadrut as the principal institutional pressure group opposing liberalization because of concerns that competition would harm transportation cooperatives. According to that analysis, appointing Kessar to the cabinet removed this source of resistance and opened the way for policies that later governments continued.[10]

As minister, Kessar doubled the transportation budget and advanced major infrastructure projects, including Jerusalem's tunnel project, the Carmel Tunnels, expansion of the Ayalon routes, and the Ben-Gurion Airport 2000 project.[6] He also introduced regulations requiring rear-seat seat-belt use, daytime headlights during winter, and higher speed limits on certain intercity roads.[6] On April 17, 1993, he joined Prime Minister Rabin for a visit to the completed New Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv.[11]

Following Rabin's assassination, Kessar continued to serve as transportation minister under Prime Minister Shimon Peres. He left the Knesset and political life in 1996 after twelve years in parliament because of the serious illness of his wife, Mazal, who died one year later.[1]

Kessar's career encompassed two of the most consequential institutional roles available to an Israeli Labor figure of his generation: leadership of the Histadrut during an acute economic crisis and a cabinet portfolio in the government formed by Yitzhak Rabin in 1992. As the Yemen-born first Sephardi to lead the Histadrut, he represented a demographic milestone in an organization in which the vast majority of Israeli workers were then organized.[3] His navigation of the 1985 stabilization plan—combining public opposition to wage erosion with eventual cooperation in its implementation—demonstrated the complexity of his position as both an advocate for workers and a participant in national economic governance.[2][8]

His infrastructure initiatives as transportation minister, including tunnel, airport, and road projects as well as new road-safety regulations, left a tangible mark on Israeli public life.[6] Kessar died on September 8, 2019, at age 88, after being hospitalized for a week at Wolfson Hospital in Holon with pneumonia that developed complications. He was survived by two children, Avishai and Raoma, and five grandchildren.[1]

A 1996 report relayed findings from a Histadrut auditor's examination of the Haifa Workers Council. The auditor found that Histadrut resources, facilities, and some employees had been used to promote Kessar during his 1992 campaigns for the Labor Party leadership, the party's Knesset list, and the general election.[12] These were findings of an internal auditor's report rather than a judicial ruling against Kessar.

Separately, Kessar's position on contacts between the Histadrut and Palestinian trade unions was politically contested. He argued that such contact was impermissible because Israeli law prohibited dealings with the Palestine Liberation Organization, and he assumed that Palestinian union leaders could not be independent of the PLO's political structure.[5] The position encountered resistance during his tenure as secretary-general.