1. Meir Vilner was a Lithuanian-born Israeli communist politician and Jewish leader of the Communist Party of Israel, at one time a powerful force in the country.
14 Facts About Meir Vilner
1. 2.
Meir Vilner was the youngest and last living signatory of the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.
3.
In Palestine, Meir Vilner studied history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
4.
Meir Vilner joined the Palestine Communist Party, which accepted both Arabs and Jews as members, and initially opposed plans to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.
5.
In March 1946, Meir Vilner testified to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, claiming that partition strengthen the dependency of both states on outside aid and widen the gulf between Arabs and Jews.
6.
On May 14,1948, Meir Vilner participated in the proclamation ceremony of the State of Israel and co-signed the Israeli Declaration of Independence on behalf of the PCP.
7.
Meir Vilner resigned from the Knesset in December 1959, six weeks after the 1959 elections, but was re-elected in 1961.
8.
On 5 June 1967, Meir Vilner was the sole Jewish deputy to speak out in the Knesset against the Six-Day War.
9.
Meir Vilner stressed that there was no other way to solve the conflict between Israel and its neighbors but mutual recognition of the national rights of Israelis and Arabs, including the right of the Palestinians to self-determination and independent statehood.
10.
Rakah became part of Hadash before the 1977 elections, and Meir Vilner remained an MK until 1990 when he resigned as part of a seat rotation agreement, making him the third longest serving after Tawfik Toubi and Shimon Peres.
11.
Meir Vilner did not accept perestroika and regarded the fall of communism in the USSR as a coup.
12.
Meir Vilner was married to Esther Vilenska, another Israeli communist politician but divorced later, after having two sons together.
13.
Meir Vilner's cousin Abba Kovner was a well-known Israeli poet and partisan resistance leader during the Holocaust.
14.
On June 5,2003, Meir Vilner died, he was the last surviving signatory of the Declaration of Independence.