Shlomo Lorincz

Rabbi Shlomo Lorincz (Hebrew: שלמה לורינץ, born 5 March 1918, died 19 October 2009) was a former Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Agudat Yisrael from 1951 until 1984, and a close confident of many gedolim.

Biography

Born in Budapest, Lorincz made aliyah to Mandatory Palestine in 1939, and was involved in illegal immigration of Jews from Hungary. In his youth, he was involved in the radical underground organisation Brit HaKanaim, which sought to establish a Halakhic state in Israel by imposing Jewish religious law in the country. In 1949 he was amongst the founders of moshav Komemiyut, and later helped found two youth villages, Sde Hemed (now a moshav) and Hazon Yehezkel (now named Aluma). In 1956 he helped found the Housing and Development company of Agudat Yisrael.

He was first elected to the Knesset in 1951 on the Agudat Yisrael list. He was re-elected in 1955 as part of the Religious Torah Front list (an alliance of Agudat Yisrael and Poalei Agudat Yisrael). He was re-elected again in 1959, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1973, 1977 and 1981. Between 1974 and 1984 he chaired the Finance Committee. Much Israeli paper currency bears his signature.

As a young man, Rabbi Lorincz became a close confidant to some of the generation's most prominent Torah personalities, including the Chazon Ish, Rav Shach and the Brisker Rov. He later compiled memoirs of these times in his book, B’Mechitzasam.

External sources

• Shlomo Lorincz on the Knesset website