Early life Porush, a seventh-generation Jerusalemite, was born in
Jerusalem in 1916 to Rabbi Moshe Glickman-Porush, and studied at the
Etz Chaim Yeshiva. In 1932 he was expelled from Etz Chaim for unseemly conduct at a
Purim party, where he allegedly slighted chief rabbi
Abraham Isaac Kook. (He later stated that he did not know ahead of time that Rabbi Kook would be denigrated in the
Purim play.) After that he went abroad to work as a correspondent for Orthodox Jewish publications, returning in 1938. By 1949, he had become assistant editor of the newspaper
Kol Yisrael. In 1954 he became a member of the Agudat Yisrael Center in Israel, and a member of the Executive of the
World Agudath Israel. In 1955, he was appointed chairman of the Agudat Yisrael Center in Israel. During this time, Porush also founded Children's Town to promote Jewish education and combat missionary influence.
1959-1994 In 1959, he was elected for the first time to the Knesset on the
Religious Torah Front list, an alliance of Agudat Yisrael and
Poalei Agudat Yisrael. He was re-elected in
1961,
1965 and
1969. Between 1969 and 1974 he also served as deputy head of the Jerusalem City Council, and in 1973 he established
Kiryat HaYeled, an educational center for
Haredi children. Although he retained his seat in the
1973 elections, he resigned from the Knesset on 23 November 1975, and was replaced by
Shlomo-Ya'akov Gross. He returned to the Knesset following the
1977 elections, and was re-elected in
1981 and
1984. The same year, Porush defied the
Gerrer Rebbe and
Council of Torah Sages, who demanded he give up his Knesset seat. In response, dozens of Gerrer Hasidim stormed into his hotel, beat him up and destroyed the place. He commented that the event reminded him of the
1929 riots. On 29 September 1984 he was appointed Deputy
Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, a post he held until 2 December the following year. After re-election in
1988, he was re-appointed to the post on 19 November 1990. He retained his seat in the
1992 elections, but resigned from the Knesset for a second and final time on 28 June 1994, and was replaced by
Avraham Verdiger. He was a member of the Knesset Education and Culture Committee from the Fourth to Ninth Knessets, and of the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee from the Fifth to Eighth Knessets. In the Ninth and Tenth Knessets he served as chairman of the Labor and Welfare Committee, and in the Twelfth Knesset as a member of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee and the Interior and Environment Committee.
Personal His son,
Meir Porush, followed him into politics as a member of the Jerusalem City Council and the Knesset for
United Torah Judaism. Porush was a longtime op-ed columnist for the Brooklyn-based
Jewish Press weekly newspaper. ==References==