Pinchas Ruthenberg

Pinchas Ruthenberg

Pinchas Ruthenberg (also written Pinhas Ruthenberg and Pinhas Rutenberg , born February 5, 1879 in Romny , Poltava Governorate , † January 3, 1942 in Jerusalem ) was a Russian hydraulic engineer, entrepreneur and Zionist pioneer.

Life

Pinchas Ruthenberg studied at the State Polytechnic Institute in Saint Petersburg and then worked as a plant manager in the Putilov works . He was an active member of the social-revolutionary party of Russia and played a leading role on Bloody Sunday (January 9 ^jul. / January 22, 1905 ^greg. ), Where he the priest Gapon saved the life.

In 1914 Ruthenberg went to the USA and participated in the local Jewish congress movement. At that time he temporarily joined the Poale Zion party .

After the February Revolution of 1917 , Ruthenberg was the head of the civil administration in northern Russia. In the crisis of the Provisional Government in the weeks leading up to the October Revolution , he was appointed one of the three plenipotentiaries of the Emergency Council of the Provisional Government. He fought the Bolsheviks to the end . After the Soviets came to power, Ruthenberg was temporarily imprisoned in Petrograd until they released him along with other political prisoners in March 1918. After his release he went to Moscow , then to Kiev and Odessa , and finally to Palestine .

The headquarters of the Palestine Electric Company in the 1920s

In Palestine, Ruthenberg developed plans for the electrification of the cities and the Jewish settlements and for the construction of 13 power plants. He was supported by Edmond de Rothschild and his son James. In 1921 the authority of giving him the High Commissioner , the concession for the construction of the power supply in Jaffa and Tel Aviv . On March 29, 1923, the Palestine Electric Corporation , today's Israel Electric Corporation , was founded under the direction of Ruthenberg and with the participation of British Jewish capital with a government license . The Palestine Electric Corporation was generally referred to as the Rutenberg Corporation after its director .

A major project was the hydroelectric exploitation of the Jarmuk falls from Naharajim (near Gescher ), immediately before the mouth of the Jarmuk into the Jordan . Since 1920 Ruthenberg worked on the power plant plans. The Palestine Electric Corporation acquired land east of the Jordan River to build the reservoir and power plant. Construction work began in 1927, and in 1932 the Naharajim power station was completed and named Tel-Or ( Mountain of Light ). In Tel Aviv and Haifa and elsewhere, diesel-fueled power plants were built. The power plants of the Palestine Electric Corporation generated electrical work of more than 34 million kWh in 1934 .

The Palestine Electric Corporation and the power plant Naharaim employed Ruthenberg so much that he for a political activity in the Yishuv initially had no time. It was only after the bloody events of August 1929 that he was elected President of the Waad Le'umi (Hebrew: National Council), the provisional government of the Yishuv, officially recognized by the British government in 1928. He also became a co-opted member of the Jewish Agency .

An obituary of the exile newspaper published in London Die Zeitung praised Pinchas Ruthenberg as "one of the great pioneers in the reconstruction of Palestine".

Honors

• The Rutenberg power station near Aschkelon is named after Pinchas Ruthenberg .

literature

• Renate Dieterich: Electrical current and nationalist trends in Transjordan: Pinhas Rutenberg and the electrification of Amman . In: Die Welt des Islams , ISSN  1570-0607 , Vol. 43 (2003), No. 1, pp. 88-101.

Web links

Commons : Pinchas Ruthenberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mordecai Naor: Eretz Israel. The 20th century. Könemann, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-89508-594-4 , p. 123.
2. ↑ Dieter Mühl: "A Gentile About Palestine". An unusual travelogue , accessed April 4, 2019.
3. ↑ Herbert Sonnenfeld : The new Ruthenberg multi-gym in Haifa-Bai . In: Jewish Community of Berlin. Community Gazette of the Jewish Community in Berlin , vol. 26, May 17, 1936, No. 20, p. 5.
4. ↑ Pinhas Ruthenberg . In: Die Zeitung of January 9, 1942, No. 253, p. 6.