Gershon Agron

Gershon Harry Agron (Hebrew: גרשון אגרון; né Agronsky; 7 January 1894 [O.S. 27 December 1893] – 1 November 1959) was an Israeli newspaper editor, politician, and the mayor of West Jerusalem between 1955 and his death in 1959.

A Zionist from his youth, Agron joined the Jewish Legion and fought in Palestine towards the end of World War I; he had come to the attention of the Zionist Organization of America from the start, and quickly became a spokesperson for American Jewry.

He then joined the Zionist Commission as a press officer and helped expand the Jewish Telegraphic Agency upon his return to the United States, of which he served as editor. He lobbied for the creation of Mandatory Palestine and immigrated there permanently in 1924, heading the Zionist Executive press office. Lacking journalistic agency, and ambitious to create Zionist press, he started his own newspaper, The Palestine Post, which was renamed as The Jerusalem Post after Israel's founding; he changed his own name (from Agronsky to Agron) around the same time.

Agron continued to serve as press officer, promoting Zionism, in the new government, and became mayor of West Jerusalem in 1955. Spearheading development in this role, he died in office, supposedly from a curse. He was considered an influential proponent of Zionism.

Gershon Harry Agron was born Gershon Harry Agronsky in Mena, Chernihiv, in the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), to Yehuda Agronsky and Sheindl Mirenberg, on 27 December 1893. His maternal grandfather was a rabbi, and his parents had hoped he would be one, too. He received an education as a child based in traditional Eastern European Jewry and Judaism in general, before he immigrated with his family to the United States in 1906. He grew up in Philadelphia, where he attended Mishkan Israel Talmudic School and Brown Preparatory School, and became friends with Israel Goldstein. When they were fourteen, Agron and Goldstein founded Philadelphia's Zionist boys' club. The family later lived in New York, where Agron worked pushing a handcart in the Garment District.

He attended several universities, all in Philadelphia: Temple University, Gratz College, Dropsie College, and the University of Pennsylvania. His university education introduced him to the Western world, but he never became fully Americanized. He was a firm Labor Zionist, which influenced his choice to attend Temple University in 1914; by 1917, he was a strong critic of Labor Zionism and was a General Zionist. Prior to entering Temple University, in 1914, Agron wrote to Arthur Ruppin, at the time the World Zionist Organization (WZO)'s officer in Jaffa, expressing his desire to settle Palestine and requesting advice on whether agriculture or engineering would be a more useful career path for the Zionist enterprise; Ruppin struggled with a response but suggested engineering.

In 1915, Agron began working as a journalist in the United States for Jewish newspapers in English and Yiddish: his first newspaper job was writing obituaries and then editorials for The Jewish World in 1915, for which he gave up his rabbinical training, and he became editor of WZO paper Das Jüdische Volk in 1917, for which he moved to New York. He was also fluent in Hebrew. In March 1918, Agron was a registered annual member of the Jewish Publication Society, and was living at 731 Jackson Street in Philadelphia.

Agron joined the Jewish Legion in April 1918, becoming a corporal and then sergeant during training in Windsor (Canada) and Plymouth (England). Within the Legion, he was part of the 40th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. In Canada, Agron – with Dov Yosef, Louis Fischer, and the Brainin brothers – took charge of recruitment for the Legion, enlisting, among others, David Ben-Gurion. Agron was "hand-picked from the beginning" to be the spokesman of the American Jews, and his progress was of import to Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) officials. Jewish writer Moses Z. Frank noted, when meeting recruits in Montreal, "Gershon Agronsky and Louis Fischer stood out among all the other volunteers." Meeting prominent Zionists in London and being surrounded by other young men sharing his Palestine-based cause uplifted Agron and invigorated his belief in Zionism, particularly American Zionism. During his visits to London, he became a public speaker on Zionism; he was demoted twice for going AWOL to make such addresses, being reduced to the rank of private.