Dr. Dov Biegun, a prominent Labor Zionist and leading Israeli manufacturer and economist, died here Saturday at the age of 66′ while on a business trip to the United States A funeral service will be held here Wednesday.
Biegun was national secretary of the National Committee for Labor Israel and vice president of AMPAL for three years in the U.S. before he immigrated to Israel in 1965. There he published a private newsletter that was circulated among a select group, was a consultant for international investments and was a manufacturer. He was in the U.S. to seek new markets for one of his factories that had formerly sold its products in Iron.
Born in Poland, Biegun earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Prague. He was the Jewish National Fund’s representative in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s and then transferred to London where he directed the JNF there and was a member of the Executive of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. When World War II began he joined the British Army and served in intelligence operations in France, Holland and Norway where he tracked down Nazi officials.
After the war, Biegun was a delegate to the World Zionist Congress in 1951 and helped arrange major loans for the JNF and the Jewish Agency. He was fluent in 14 languages and was in the midst of writing his memoirs at the time of his death.
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