Born in 1900 in Odessa, he became an active Zionist from his youth. In 1948 he began active propaganda for free Jewish emigration. He organized groups of Jews willing to leave for Israel, and gave their names to the authorities, asking for permission for them to be allowed to travel to their historic homeland. In 1966 he established connections with the Israeli Embassy in Moscow in the cause of overall free immigration of Jews from the Soviet Union into Israel. In 1968 he was arrested and charged with contacts with American representatives of the Joint which in 20th and 30th was engaged in organization and establishment of Jewish agricultural communes in the South Ukraine and Crimea, and also with systematic Zionist activities, and was sentenced to 6 years in the Gulag. In 1970 he was released and the same year he left for Israel. David Betsalel received the title of “Honorary Citizen” of the town Tveria. He published several books on the national Jewish problems.
