Shlomo Yosef Burg was born in
Dresden,
Germany, on 31 January 1909. He attended the
Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in
Berlin from 1928 to 1938 and was ordained as a
rabbi that year. He also studied at the
University of Berlin from 1928 to 1931 and received a Doctorate in mathematics and logic from the
University of Leipzig in 1933. While studying at the University of Leipzig, he joined the Young Mizrahi religious Zionist movement. He arranged Jewish prayer services in private homes after German synagogues were burned, and worked underground to help Jews escape to Britain and the Netherlands. His mother and grandmother died in Nazi concentration camps. He worked as teacher at the
Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium - where he taught religion wearing a
kippa, which he would remove when teaching history - before moving to
Jerusalem. There he became a research fellow at
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Burg lived in the
Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem. Burg was married to Rivka Slonim, who was born in
Hebron and survived the
1929 Hebron massacre. They had a son,
Avraham, a politician
Political career In Palestine, Burg joined
Hapoel HaMizrachi, a
religious-Zionist party. Alongside three other religious parties, Hapoel HaMizrachi ran on a joint list called the
United Religious Front for the
first Knesset elections in 1949. The group won 16 seats, and Burg took a seat in the Knesset, becoming deputy speaker. In the
1951 elections the party ran by itself, winning eight seats. Burg remained in the Knesset and became
minister of health in the
third government. In the fourth, fifth and sixth governments he served as
minister of postal services, a position he retained until 1958. In 1956 Hapoel HaMizrachi merged with their ideological twins from the
Mizrachi party to form the
National Religious Party (NRP). The party was a member of all governments until 1992. In 1977, he became the president of the
World Mizrachi Movement. As a key party member, Burg maintained a ministerial position in every Knesset until his resignation from the Knesset and retirement from politics in 1986, having held the positions of minister of welfare, minister of internal affairs, minister without portfolio and
minister of religious affairs. Burg was famous for his erudite wit. Journalists dubbed his appearances in parliament "Burgtheater," after the famous
playhouse in Vienna. ==Legacy==