Charlie Biton

Charlie Biton
File:צ'ארלי ביטון דפני ליף.jpg
Date of birth	(1947-04-11) 11 April 1947
Place of birth	Casablanca, Morocco
Year of aliyah	1949
Knessets	9, 10, 11, 12
Faction represented in Knesset
1977-1990	Hadash
1990-1992	Black Panthers

Charlie-Shalom Biton (Hebrew: צ'רלי-שלום ביטון‎; born 11 April 1947) is a former Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Hadash and the Black Panthers between 1977 and 1992.

Biography

Charlie Biton was born in Casablanca in Morocco. His family immigrated to Israel in 1949 when he was two years old. He grew up in Musrara neighbourhood of Jerusalem and attended an ORT vocational school. In 1971 he was one of the founders of the Israeli Black Panthers movement, along with Sa'adia Marciano, Reuven Abargil and Eli Avichzer. In 1974, he was sentenced to seven months in prison for assaulting a police officer. He went into hiding to avoid his sentence, and was later pardoned.

Political career

As the Black Panthers became aligned with Hadash, Biton was elected to the Knesset on the party's list in 1977. He was re-elected in 1981, 1984 and 1988. On 25 December 1990, he left Hadash to establish his own faction. The faction's name was not initially approved by the House Committee, but on 1 January 1991 it was named Black Panthers.

In the 1992 Knesset elections he headed a list named Hatikva, but it won only 2,053 votes (0.1%), well below the 1.5% electoral threshold, and Biton lost his seat. The list ran again in the 1999 elections, but again failed to cross the threshold.

External links

• Charlie Biton on the Knesset website