Joseph Loewy

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Joseph Loewy

Joseph Loewy (born August 5, 1885 in Gliwice , Upper Silesia , † April 25, 1949 in Nahariya , Israel ) was a German-Israeli civil engineer, Zionist politician and town planner in Palestine / Israel, where he co-founded the German-Jewish immigrant settlement Nahariya .

Origin and education

Joseph Loewy came from a merchant family from Gleiwitz. After his Abitur (1903) he studied almost all branches of engineering at the TH Berlin-Charlottenburg and was at the same time active in a Zionist student union, the "Association of Jewish Students", which referred to Theodor Herzl's Basel program (1897) . After obtaining his diploma (1909) and four years of professional experience "in reinforced concrete construction, iron construction, urban civil engineering, urban planning, in the manufacture of building materials" and the opportunity to develop his "technical knowledge from an economic point of view", he worked in 1913 until 1915 in the Palestine Office in Jaffa , which since 1908 coordinated the Jewish colonization in Palestine under the direction of Arthur Ruppin .

Professional and political career

In the Palestine Office, Joseph Loewy set up the “Technical Department” and also took care of urban planning concepts based on European standards - including the widening of streets in the newly founded Tel Aviv as well as the construction of simple apartments for Yemeni immigrants. Here, however, Joseph Loewy got into conceptual and political contradictions to his superior Ruppin. During the First World War , Loewy was recalled as a German citizen to work in Berlin as an engineer in war-essential production - the construction of aircraft hangars. Loewy met his future wife Clara Sommerfeld (1889–1974) in the Berlin construction company Adolf Sommerfeld , with whom he moved back to Palestine in 1920 to run the construction company “Kedem” in Tel Aviv and from 1924 in Haifa with the vision of To operate “garden cities” as town planners and as private land buyers for Jewish settlements. The central concern was the development of the Jewish sector in Haifa Bay. When the persecution of Jews began in Germany in the 1930s, Joseph Loewy designed the Nahariya agricultural settlement together with the agronomist Selig Eugen Soskin (1873–1959), the engineer Simon Reich (1883–1941) and the banker Heinrich Cohn (1895–1976) north of Haifa. During the Second World War, it offered 1000 Jewish refugees from Germany a new economic livelihood as farmers, craftsmen and workers. After numerous crises, the Nahariya settlement survived as a spa and climatic health resort and is now a modern Israeli city with 65,000 inhabitants.

meaning

Joseph Loewy is still celebrated today in Nahariya as one of the co-founders of the settlement, although he is also responsible for the financial failure of the first agricultural settlement concept by Selig Eugen Soskin. Its historical merit is the provision of private settlements for European immigrants and their economic integration. Joseph Loewy founded various private colonization companies that bought free land from Arab landowners and sold them to new settlers with equity through "amelioration" and parceling for agricultural cultivation. Joseph Loewy thus became one of the most famous private investors in Palestine and the new state of Israel.

Publications

  • Joseph Loewy: Past and Future of "Haifa Bay". Haifa 1928. (Brochure in German. Mazursky private archive, Nahariya).
  • Joseph Loewy: The development possibilities of the Carmel in connection with the development of the city of Haifa. In: Palestine. Monthly for the construction of Palestine. XIII. No. 1./2. Vienna 1930, pp. 9-18.
  • Joseph Loewy: The tasks of the private initiative in Haifa Bay. In: Palestine. Monthly for the construction of Palestine. XV. No. 8./9. Vienna 1932, pp. 233-240.
  • Joseph Loewy: The Future of Jewish Haifa. In: Palestine. Monthly for the construction of Palestine. XVI. Vol. 5./6. Vienna 1933, pp. 145–156.
  • Joseph Loewy: Industrial and suburban settlements instead of tenements in Haifa and Tel Aviv. Proposals for the economic restructuring of the Jewish settlement in Palestine. Haifa / Nahariah 1940. (Brochure in German. Mazursky private archive, Nahariya).
  • Joseph Loewy: The Haifa Bay. Nahariya 1945. (Brochure in German. Mazursky private archive, Nahariya).

swell

  • "Joseph Loewy, CE - Palestine 1913-1915" file. Mazursky private archive, Nahariya / Israel.
  • Joseph Loewy: Report on my work in the service of the Jewish National Fund (1913-1915). MS Berlin 1915. Zionist Archives, Jerusalem. CZA File 280.
  • Personal Papers of Joseph Loewy, Zionist Archives, Jerusalem. CZA File J 104.
  • Minutes of Nahariah Small Holdings. Zionist Archives, Jerusalem. CZA File J 72.

literature

  • Klaus Kreppel : Paths to Israel. Conversations with German-speaking immigrants in Nahariya . Westfalen-Verlag, Bielefeld 1999, ISBN 3-88918-097-3 .
  • Klaus Kreppel : Israel's hard-working Jeckes. Twelve business portraits of German-speaking Jews in Nahariya . Westfalen-Verlag, Bielefeld 2002, ISBN 3-88918-101-5 .
  • Klaus Kreppel : Nahariyya - the village of the "Jeckes". The establishment of the middle class settlement for German immigrants in Eretz Israel in 1934/35 . The Open Museum, Tefen 2005, ISBN 965-7301-01-7 .
  • Klaus Kreppel : Nahariya's Early Years 1934–1949 The historical introduction and the prefaces to the 15 categories were written by the historian Dr. Klaus Kreppel from Bielefeld . ( rutkin.info ).
  • Klaus Kreppel : Nahariyya and the German immigration to Eretz Israel. The history of its inhabitants from 1935 to 1941 . The Open Museum, Tefen 2010, ISBN 978-965-7301-26-5 .
  • Klaus Kreppel : Nahariyya Moshewet haYekkim. Sippur Dor HaMeyassdim 1935-1941 . The Open Museum, Tefen 2011, ISBN 978-965-7301-32-6 .
  • Arthur Ruppin : Diaries, Letters, Memories. A publication by the Leo Baeck Institute. Edited by Shlomo Krolik. With an afterword by Alex Bein. Jüdischer Verlag Athenäum., Königstein / Taunus 1985, ISBN 3-7610-0368-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joseph Loewy (Jaffa) to Jakobus Kann (The Hague) on April 15, 1915. Mazursky private archive, Nahariya.
  2. ↑ Arthur Ruppin: Diaries, Letters, Memories. Edited by Shlomo Krolik. With an afterword by Alex Bein. Jewish publishing house Athenaeum. Königstein / Taunus 1985, pp. 219-222.
  3. ^ Klaus Kreppel: Nahariya and the German immigration to Eretz Israel. The history of its inhabitants from 1935 to 1941. Tefen 2010, pp. 95–107.
personal data
SURNAME Loewy, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Israeli civil engineer, Zionist politician and city planner
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Gleiwitz , Upper Silesia
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1949
Place of death Nahariya , Israel