Yehuda Leib Maimon

After returning to Mandate Palestine (now under British control) in 1919, Maimon became leader of Mizrachi in the country and together with Abraham Isaac Kook he helped establish the Chief Rabbinate. He was elected to the board of the Jewish Agency in 1935. In 1936, he founded Mossad Harav Kook, a religious research foundation and notable publishing house named in honor of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.

Maimon helped draft Israel's Declaration of Independence and was one of its signers. He was appointed Minister of Religions and Minister of War Victims in the provisional government established immediately after independence. He was elected to the first Knesset in 1949 as a member of the United Religious Front (an alliance of Agudat Yisrael, Poalei Agudat Yisrael, Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi) and retained his ministerial role in the first and second governments. He was the driving force behind a failed effort to reestablish the Sanhedrin. He lost his seat in the 1951 elections.