Baram, Moshe
BARAM, MOSHE
BARAM, MOSHE (1911–1986), Israeli politician. Baram was born in Zdolbunov in Russia. As a boy, he joined the *He-Ḥalutz and the Freiheit Dror movement connected to *Po'alei Zion, and immigrated to Palestine in 1931, settling in Jerusalem. Baram was employed as a construction worker and was active in the *Histadrut and the *Haganah. In 1934 he started to work in the *Jewish Agency and in 1938 became a member of the Secretariat of the *Mapai branch in Jerusalem, becoming secretary in 1943. In 1944 he was a delegate to the Fourth Elected Assembly of the Yishuv. During the War of Independence he was a member of the Emergency Commission and of Haganah Headquarters in Jerusalem. In 1948 he was appointed secretary-general of the Jerusalem Labor Council and in 1955 was elected to the Jerusalem Municipal Council, serving as chairman of the coalition executive. Baram was first elected to the Fourth Knesset in 1959 and was appointed chairman of the Knesset Labor and Welfare Committee. In the Sixth Knesset he served as chairman of the Coalition Executive, chairman of the Unemployment Insurance Commission, and head of the Jerusalem branch of the Labor Party. In 1974 Baram was appointed minister of labor in Rabin's first government, holding this position until the elections in May 1977. In the government he chaired the Ministerial Committee on Wages and the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Employment. In 1975, despite Histadrut opposition, he introduced the Work Sanctions Bill.
Moshe Baram's eldest son, Uzi *Baram, was a member of the Ninth to Fifteenth Knessets for the Israel Labor Party.
bibliography:
O. Betzer (ed.), Moshe Baram: 1911–1986 (1987).
[Susan Hattis Rolef (2nd ed.)]