Abba Hushi

Abba Hushi
Date of birth	1898
Place of birth	Turka, Austria-Hungary
Year of aliyah	1920
Date of death	24 March 1969
Knessets	1
Faction represented in Knesset
1949–1951	Mapai

Abba Hushi (Also: Aba Khoushy; Hebrew: אבא חושי‎‎; born Abba Schneller; 1898 – 24 March 1969) was an Israeli politician who served as mayor of Haifa for eighteen years between 1951 and 1969. Hushi was one of the founders and activists of Hashomer Hatzair movement in Poland. In July 1920, he immigrated to Mandate Palestine with a group of 130 Jewish pioneers. There he took the Hebrew surname "Hushi" ["speedy"], a translation of his original name, Schneller. He built roads and drained swamps, and helped to found kibbutz Beit Alfa. He was one of the founding members of the Histadrut labor federation. In 1927, he settled in Haifa and joined the Ahdut HaAvoda party, which later merged with Mapai. He was secretary of the Haifa Workers Council from 1931 to 1951. Hushi was elected to Israel's first Knesset in 1949 as a member of Mapai. Before the 1951 elections, he left the government to become mayor of Haifa. As mayor, he helped to found the University of Haifa, the Haifa Theatre, the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, the Mane-Katz Museum and the Carmelit (Haifa's funicular railway).

Abba Hushi was the father-in-law of Knesset member Amnon Linn.

Abba Hushi was born in 1898 in Turka, Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary (today in Ukraine, from 1919 to 1939 in Poland). His mother, Liba, ran a small farm, where she grew fruits and vegetables. After divorcing her first husband, Liba moved to Turka and married Zisha, a haberdasher. To avoid the draft, Zisha changed his name to Alexander, took Liba's surname, "Schneller," and hid in the attic of Liba's farmhouse.

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