"Pinhas Rutenberg – "Life and Times 1879-1942", Prof. Eli Shaltiel, Ofakim Library, Am Oved Publishers, 1990 "Days of Light," Ben Zion Dikowski, published by the author, 1984 "Pinhas Rotenberg - The Man and His Action", Ya'ari-Polskin, Published by the Period, 1939 Kama, Shlomo Shva, Zmora Bitan / Publishers, 1989 Remarks
"Political Murder in the Twentieth Century," Emil Feuerstein, Keter Press, 1986, p.15
The research work of Prof. Matityahu Mintz, "Pinchas Rotenberg's Initiatives for the Establishment of the Jewish Battalions at the outbreak of the First World War".
"Haifa in its Development 1918-1948", booklet Idan 1989, Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, p. 50
"The Activist - The Life Story of Eliahu Golomb", Ahovia Malkin, Ofakim Library, Am Oved Publishers, 2007, pp. 341-2.
Site of Moshe Sharett and his legacy - letter number 126
The site of Zemershet - http://www.zemereshet.co.il/song.asp?id=326&phrase= The old tunnel
"The Days of the Anemones - The Land of Israel during the Mandate Period", Tom Segev, Keter, 1999, p.112
Berl, Anita Shapira, Ofakim Library, Am Oved, 1980, pp. 316-7.
The Strong Man
Born: February 5,1879, Romny, Ukraine Died: January 3, 1942 Irsael
The yearning for a "strong man" as a leader, who can "impose order," is intensified in times of crisis and loss of direction, when the leadership is divided and weak. During the crisis of the bloody events in 1929 (the Arab riots), the public felt that the Zionist Organization, led by Chaim Weizmannn, was detached and preoccupied with endless interferences in congresses held around the world.There was only one person who did not adhere to the political stigma: Pinchas Rutenberg. Rutenberg was accepted by both the left and the right: the leaders of the socialist parties were nostalgic for the memory of his days as a great revolutionary in Russia. Right-wing circles loved the entrepreneurial and capitalist activism of the man who built the IEC (Israel Electric Company) from nothing. The British believed that his approach to the "Arab problem" was more pragmatic, and the masses simply admired the mysterious and romantic figure who supplied energy, light, and jobs in an economy stricken with unemployment. Prof. Matityahu Mintz talks about Pinchas Rutenberg's life until his immigration to Irsael
The Revolutionary
Pyotr Moiseyevich Rutenberg was born in 1879, in the Ukranian city of Romny, a town of wealthy farmers from which the founders of the kibbutz came from. As a child, he received a traditional religious education, but later he studied secular studies at the Gymnasium and excelled in the non-religious professions. Due to his excellence, he succeeded in becoming a polytechnic, technology and science, despite the numerus-clausus (quota restricting admission) limiting the number of Jews who were accepted to higher education. Later, he would emphasize that his national sense of belonging had no religion. After the assassination of Czar Alexander II by revolutionaries, his son, Alexander the III, came to power. He opposed his father's relative liberalism and instituted a repressive nationalist and religious regime. Pyotr, the young student, saw the suffering of the Russian people and forgot the suffering of the Jewish people. After working with various revolutionary groups, he joined the Social Revolutionaries (SRs), later the bitter enemies of the Bolsheviks. By then the end of the empire was falling, it was the end of the old order, of suppressed passion, of endless arguments among the revolutionaries, many of them Jews, among themselves, and of dealing with a violent secret police. After completing his studies, he began working as an engineer at Putilov, a huge industrial enterprise.
The Murder of Father Gapon
The Putilov Company workers from the Putilov factory, were the moving spirit in the workers' councils convened by Father Gregory Gapon, a charismatic cleric whose life and death became a key figure in the history of the Russian Revolution. Father Gapon discovered, during his study of theology, what independent thinking was, and argued that the practical commandments are not the main thing but rather moral values. First and foremost he advocated love of others and altruism. Of course, such a subversive thinking for a young man, who had also long hair, couldn't get him promoted and he was sent to serve as a priest in a small, remote church of poor laborers. But Gapon turned the fact that he wasn't promoted into an advantage: his popular and enthusiastic sermons and proletarian views, in which he emphasized Jesus' love of the poor, worked, and thousands of workers began to flock to the little church that was too small to contain the crowds. Workers who did not like the high-minded intellectuals, trusted the father Gapon. The admiration of the masses did not escape the attention of the socialist parties and the secret police, who sought to harness the charismatic priest. Even the rich circles brought Gapon close to them, and he became a welcome guest in the noble ladies' parlors. To his credit, he used his connections with the rich to benefit the poor, and raised donations for the construction of shelter sand charitable institutions that further strengthened his status. Rutenberg heard from the workers at the Putilov factory about the intention to hold a mass march headed by Father Gapon. The march was supposed to march toward the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tzar Nicholas II of Russia. This demonstration took place in January and was called "Bloody Sunday". It marked the beginning of the revolution of 1905. Rutenberg reported the plan to his party leaders and they ordered him to take part in the demonstration and supervise its actions. He was an activist and also engaged in political assassinations, so he knew a thing or two about organizing and demonstrating. He tried to persuade Father Gapon and his men to equip themselves with weapons and prepare escape routes. Gapon as a naïve clergyman, refused to believe that all of the hardships would eventually be resolved when "their father the Czar" which they still looked up to, would listen to his subjects and understand. Gapon reported the march to the justice minister and even sent a letter to the Czar. The justice minister told him that he would not allow the marchers to go to the winter palace, and Gapon replied, "But you will not order to shoot at people bearing holy images and pictures of the tzar?" The justice minister replied that they would not shoot at the pictures but at the people. (1) Despite the clear announcement Gapon never imagined that the revered ruler would shoot his soldiers / loyal sons. Of course, the naïve predictions did not materialize, and the soldiers fired at the unarmed crowd. The only one who did not lose his temper was Rutenberg. Having been ordered to follow Gapon. Rutenberg convinced Gapon to quickly cut his hair and shave his beard, and dress in ordinary clothes. Rutenberg then transferred the wanted priest by the authorities from one apartment to another until they hid him in the apartment of his best friend, the writer Maxim Gorky. On the orders of his party leaders, Rutenberg smuggled the priest out of Russia and accompanied him on his tours of European cities. The arrival of Gapon aroused great excitement with the leaders of the various camps of the Russian revolutionary movement. He became a sought-after guest in the home of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Krupskaya, as well as in the home of Plekhanov, the father of Russian Marxism. Rutenberg even brought him to Paris where he met Georges Clemenceau and Jean Jaures. As a faithful, conservative, and monarchist cleric, he did not find a common language with the radical revolutionaries. The only one with whom he had created a friendship with, was Rutenberg, whose status in the party because of his connections with him had been upgraded. In the meantime, the revolution in Russia gained momentum and Gapon missed his homeland and its workers rising on barricades. Rumors circulated in Russia about his hedonistic way of life, his visits to the casino and his contacts with women caused him to seek to purify his name again. He applied for a return and his request was accepted. From this moment the plot thickens, and most of its details are unknown to this day, and the versions of the events are different and contradictory. There is no doubt that the secret police indeed asked Father Gapon to join their ranks and he accepted the request. His handler asked him to recruit Rutenberg and in return they were ready to pay a fortune. Gapon, who saw Rutenberg as a friend told him about it, and suggested that they be double agents, receive the money from the secret police but in practice remain loyal to the revolutionaries. When, Gapon's contacts with the secret police became public, Rutenberg saw no choice but to inform his party superiors about the sequence of events. At this moment, came another mysterious figure. Yevno Azef - the traitor and a double agent who was a senior member of the secret police as well as a leader of the Social Revolutionaries. The Jewish Azef, whose name will become a code name for a traitor, will even affect Manya Shochat's biography/life, and will be indirectly responsible for her immigration to Israel. (The movement led by Mania Shohat led to arguments within the Czarist regime. In a meeting between her and Flava, the anti-Semitic Minister of the Interior, Mania informed him that if he tried to hurt the movement she would not hesitate to organize his murder. Mania went to Germany to get money to organize the murder of Plava. A group was also organized for this purpose, but a traitor named Azef gave the people to the authorities. The plan ended in disaster. Some of the participants were killed and some were arrested. In 1904 Mania came to Palestine.) Rutenberg's reports of Gapon's contacts with the secret police alarmed Azef, who feared that his identity as a police agent would be exposed, and the only way to prevent it was to get Gapon to be executed as a traitor. Azef assigned the task, ostensibly, to the leadership of the party, to Rutenberg. He chose a sophisticated and diabolical opportunity that enabled him to not to be exposed. Apparently Rutenberg himself did not kill his friend Gapon, but there is no doubt that he led to his death, and was responsible for his murder. Azef had made sure Rutenberg was personally stigmatized, and the party SR had never admitted to murder. Years later, when Azef was exposed as a traitor, the SR party issued a brief statement that Rutenberg hadn't murdered Gapon for personal motives. After the murder, Rutenberg fled for fear of the secret police and the fear of his revolutionary friends in Italy.
Pyotr becomes Pinchas Ben-Ami
In Italy, Rutenberg joined the Russian exile circles and renewed his warm ties with writer Maxim Gorky. In this vibrant society of intellectuals and worldly institutions, he was influenced by the spirit of nationalism that flourished at the time. Among other things, he became acquainted with a young man named Benito Mussolini, who was still a socialist and not at all a Jew-hater. In the future, in the 1930s, various leaders will use Rutenberg's connections with the Duce. In the pastoral Italian landscape he tried to find relief from the trauma of the murder of Father Gapon, and away from the noise of barricades he began to remember his Jewishness. Along with the understanding that the revolution would not, as many Jews believed, defeat anti-Semitism and the atmosphere of national awakening that enveloped everything, made him "return to his people." He also took advantage of the quiet days to expand his education, acquired a new profession - "Hydrotechnics" - and developed a new method for constructing flood-resistant dams.
The Jewish Legion
The outbreak of the First World War precipitated the process of the return of the Jewish people. In the Zionist movement there was a bitter debate between the supporters of neutrality and the supporters of the Allied countries, namely Britain, France, the United States, and Russia, which fought against the central powers - Germany and the Ottoman Empire. Most of the Zionists tended toward Britain and its allies. The continuation of Turkish rule in the Land of Israel was an unbearable burden, and the promises made by the British culminating in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 directed the hearts to wish for the conquest of the land by the British. However, German Jews still felt intense patriotic feelings in a tragic days of World War II, and opposed any identification to Zionism, which were enemies of Germany. The bitter fate of the Armenians was a warning sign of the fragility of Jewish existence in the Land of Israel. Jabotinsky, unlike Weizmann, had no doubt that the Jews had to be drafted into the British army in an open and impressive manner. He fantasized about the Hebrew legions who conquer the land in a storm, proudly carrying the flags of Zion. Even revolutionaries like Trumpeldor saw the establishment of a Jewish legion within the framework of the British army as the need for the hour. Rutenberg, as a short-tempered man of action, enlisted with all his might to realize the dream of the battalions. The historian Matityahu Mintz asserts that Zionist historiography underestimated Rutenberg's contribution to the formulation and dissemination of the idea of the Jewish Legion, and glorified Jabotinsky's part. Mintz discovered that at that time Rutenberg maintained his close ties with the Social Revolutionaries, and that in fact his support for the Jewish regiments was in line with the party's approach. The promotion of the idea of the regiments that would conquer the country from the Turks, the Germans' partners, actually served the trends of the Russian homeland, the ally of France and Britain. Mintz does not believe that Rutenberg's return to the Jewish people was false, but emphasizes the compatibility between his conduct and the interests of the party and Russia. The evidence of maintaining the connection and preference for the interests of the party will be its rapid and smooth integration in the future at the top of the government during the Kerensky social-revolutionary period. In Milan, Rutenberg met the leader of Poalei Zion, Bar Borochov, and both agreed that the victory of Britain and Russia would serve the interests of socialism and the national demands of the Jewish people. (The research work of Prof. Matityahu Mintz, "Pinchas Rutenberg Initiatives for the Establishment of Hebrew Battalions at the outbreak of the First World War"). (2) Rutenberg met with Weizmann in London in an attempt to advance the idea of the Jewish Legion. Weizmann showed some interest in the proposal but quickly cooled down in the face of the resolute opposition of the Berlin Zionists. Shaltiel writes on page 32 of his book that "in modern times we would say that from the beginning the chemistry did not work between these two men of authority." After retiring from London, Rutenberg returned to Italy, where he met Jabotinsky no less enthusiastic, and the two men shared the work of promoting the idea of the battalions in such a way that Jabotinsky would operate in Europe and Rutenberg in the United States. The British army suggested that a Jewish regiment of mule drivers be established to deal with supplies, but the arrogant Jabotinsky rejected the offer with scorn and regarded it as humiliation. Trumpeldor was more practical and urged Jabotinsky to accept the proposal. It was Rutenberg who made the decision, and made it clear to Jabotinsky that Trumpeldor was right, and that the Jews should not set conditions for fighting the Jewish battalions and in what units. In the United States, Rutenberg published a pamphlet in Yiddish under the pen name Pinchas Ben Ami, in which he listed his credo. He stated that anti-Semitism would not disappear even if the working class won, and that the Jewish people had no choice but to return to the Land of Israel "in which the epic and romantic nature of the Jewish people are bound." In the East European immigrant community in the United States, Rutenberg was welcomed with open arms. "In the newly arrived concentrations of Jewish immigrants, the longing for the old homeland had not faded away. (Shaltiel, p. 35). But the divisions between the various camps of American Jewry exhausted him, and the revolution that broke out in Russia in February 1917 saved him from the paralysis that political activity had imposed on him.
Back to Mother Russia
In the New York Hall, Rutenberg sat on the stage as the chairman beside his good friend, the representative of the new Russian revolution. Zionism was not even mentioned there. Many sought to return to the homeland and to help the revolution, and the queue of applicants was long but Rutenberg was treated favorably and on July 11, 1917 went to Russia where his dominion was controlled by his longtime friend Alexander Kerensky. As is well known, the SRs (Socialist Revolution party) soon split into pro-Bolshvik and anti-Bolshevik factions. The anti-Bolshevik faction of this party, known as the Right SRs, which remained loyal to the Provisional Government leader Alexander Kerensky was defeated and destroyed by the Bolsheviks in the course of the Russian Civil War and subsequent persecution. In the meantime though, Rutenberg was appointed deputy governor of Petrograd and was responsible for law and order in the capital. Kerensky found it difficult to impose his authority on all those who wished to oust him, and Rutenberg took a hard hand against opponents of the regime. It was reported that he had proposed to arrest and hang the Bolshevik leaders, Lenin and Trotsky, but the liberal and hesitant Kerensky refused. The revolution filled the air, and pushed aside the preoccupation with the problems of the Jewish people. In October 1917, Kerensky's rule collapsed and the Bolsheviks, hated by Rutenberg, seized power and arrested him. He had been in jail for several months and seemed to have been doomed, but the intervention of Gorky and Alexandra Kollontai had led to his release. After the attempted assassination of Lenin, the systematic persecution of anyone associated with the Social Revolutionaries began, and Rutenberg fled to Odessa, where an anti-Bolshevik government controlled the French army. He was appointed minister of supply, but after the breakup of the government and the approach of the Red Army a miracle to Turkey, things were looking grim. That is until. the summer of 1919, with the Peace Conference in Versailles. This was the meeting of the victorious Allied Powers following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Power.
Electric Vision
At the Versailles Peace Conference, Rutenberg joined the representatives of the Jews who presented to the leaders of the nations the demand of the Jewish people for national recognition. The writer and journalist of the Second Aliyah, Ya'ari Polskin, writes on page 158 of his book: "Pinchas Rutenberg, the Man and his Work," about the excitement that gripped the delegation members upon his arrival: He writes: "'In Paris he met with his great friend Nachman Sirkin, who served as a member of the Jewish delegations to the Peace Conference, Sirkin said, "When we reached the rumor that Pinchas Rutenberg was in Paris, I was very happy ... As if Rutenberg had been resurrected from the dead, we had already eulogized him in America. The SRs and anti-Bolshevik and half-general Leib told me safely when we met in Washington that the Bolsheviks had killed Rutenberg by shooting a few months ago, and we all cried at the time. And now, I am sitting with the dead returning to life. He is alive and fresh, bustling and full of power. Look in his eyes cleverness, full of love, and goes his way, whether straight or crooked. But his way. '" In the course of the discussions about the characterization of the British mandate in Eretz Israel, Rutenberg raised for the first time, the vision of harnessing the natural resources, especially the water to generate electricity. The British Committee of Deputies, headed by Chaim Weizmann, was infected with his enthusiasm, and at the end of 1919 he was sent a comprehensive survey. A few months later, he sent a detailed and inspiring document on the possibilities of using the country's resources to produce electricity. This was the beginning of a one-man journey, which paved its way alone against huge obstacles on the way to realizing a one-time performance project. In 1921, the agreement granting Rutenberg the exclusive right to use the water of the Land of Israel to manufacture electricity and supply it to consumers was signed in London in 1921, and in 1923 he established the Israel Electric Corporation.
The Battle for Concessions at the International Court of Justice in The Hague
The Mandate authorities began to internalize the fact that the realization of the dream of the Jewish home would not be simple, and that there was an Arab population hostile to the Zionist idea. As far as they were concerned, handing over the electricity concession to the Zionist institutions constituted improper and politically problematic discrimination, and handing over the concession to a private person without a tender was problematic in terms of proper administrative procedures. Throughout the negotiations, the parties tended to view the presentation of the Zionist Organization as the recipient of the concession, and the presentation of Rutenberg as a private entrepreneur. The dilemma arose when a former Ottoman citizen of Greek origin sued the Mandatory authorities at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, claiming that the concession to Rutenberg had lost its rights by virtue of a concession he had acquired from the Ottoman Empire. According to him, handing over the concession harmed his interests and that of the entire non-Jewish population. In response to the International Court of Justice, all parties were careful to claim that the concessionaire was a private entrepreneur and not an ethnic group. Both Rutenberg and Weizmann told the Mandatory authorities that they had no authorization to declare that there was no connection between the franchisee, private entrepreneur Rutenberg and the Zionist Organization, and that it was a business venture that would serve the entire population, including the Arab population. But things were not so simple. Rutenberg traveled to 'Eretz Israel' then Palestine, in 1919 to prepare the preliminary research. They needed to know how to take advantage of the natural resources there as well as how it would be possible to make an electric power plant.
The Battle Passes to the British Parliament
Rutenberg wanted to raise the capital needed to fund the project and start the practical work, but then the British press and parliament exploded a public scandal over the granting of the concessions. A wave of anti-semitism spread. They all talked about the international Jewish connection, and as evidence showed the involvement of High Commissioner Herbert Samuel, who was in fact a Zionist leader and the driving force behind the promotion of the electricity project. Members of the pro-Arab lobby presented the electricity plant as a symbol of discrimination against the Arab population. Rutenberg left everything and hurried to London to present his position. He stressed that the Land of Israel is poor and that it is a public philanthropic operation that is supposed to raise Jewish capital for the benefit of all the residents of the country and their welfare, including the Arabs, and to remove the burden from the shoulders of the British taxpayer. The public debate spilled over to the issue of electricity and the parliament debated the seriousness of the question of the price of the commitment to establish a Jewish national home in the Land of Israel. The Balfour Declaration, a public statement issued by the British government during World War I announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, was presented as an international Jewish conspiracy that would impose a heavy financial burden on the British taxpayer and would result in a policy of discrimination against the Arab public and its transformation into the enemy of the British Empire. Balfour tried to repel the attacks and delivered a speech in Parliament that defended Zionism. His speech did not persuade the members of parliament who claimed, among other things, that the nature of the immigrants to the Land of Israel made it a Bolshevik nest. It seemed that the pro-Arab lobby had the upper hand and the very justification for the existence of the national home as a whole was in danger. Then Winston Churchill stood up to speak. He sang a song of praise for Zionism and the electric project as representing all its goodness. In his speech, he combined both the Arab lobby and those who cared for the taxpayer's pocket. The main points of the speech were: "No one doubts the duty of the British Empire to develop the Land of Israel, but who will be charged the financial burden? The British taxpayer? Or perhaps the Arab public that has lived in the country for hundreds of years and has not lifted a finger to develop it. True, Rutenberg is a Jew, and he recruited businessmen and Jewish capitalists to develop the natural resources of the Land of Israel and create jobs for its Arab residents, but is it therefore necessary to disqualify his vision?" And from there he went on to break the personality of someone who was presented as a "Russian Communist." Churchill, known for his hatred of the Bolsheviks, found Rotenberg a worthy partner. He told members of parliament that Rutenberg served in a command post in the government of Kerensky, the democrat and supporter of Britain, and in his capacity advised him to ban and suspend Lenin and Trotsky. To all the laughter of those present, he said that "I did not know this detail in his life when I agreed to grant him the requested concession." Churchill's victory was overwhelming and public opinion also changed. In retrospect it turns out that the use of the pro-Arab lobby on electricity concessions as a lever to torpedo the building of the national home was a mistake, since removing the issue from the agenda also removed the question of justifying the establishment of the Jewish home. In a footnote we note that Churchill had a very good opinion of Zionism, but a very bad opinion of the Arabs and Islam. WARNING: In the following text there is not a trace of politically correctness: Churchill said, among other things, that "where the Arab comes, the desert often comes. In addition to fanaticism which is dangerous to man ... archaic habits, old farming methods, slow trading methods, and property insecurity exist wherever the Prophet's believers live and exist. ... The fact that in Muhammad's laws every woman must belong to a certain man as his absolute property ... hinders the extinction of slavery until the end of Islam being a great force among human beings." Churchill went on to say that he had met Arabs with excellent qualities, but the harmful influence of their religion harmed them and their development. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he predicted: "Islam is an inciting and violent faith, and it has already spread through Central Africa, raising warriors without fear in every way ... the civilization of modern Europe may fall just as the Roman civilization fell."
The Battle for Funding
After the issue of the arrangements was settled, Rutenberg turned to the next stage, which turned out to be the most difficult of all: raising huge sums needed to realize the dream. All along he claimed to British public opinion that it was a philanthropic operation financed by Jewish capital, but the Zionist institutions and wealthy Jewish people backed out in the end. Rutenberg tried unsuccessfully to raise money from the Zionist Organization headed by Weizmann, from tycoons close to the Zionist movement, and even from the American group headed by Justice Brandeis, who at the time was an opposition to Weizmann. In the period of the attempt to raise funds, the conflict between him and Chaim Weizmann began. Shaltiel writes about tThe Battle for Concessions at the International Court of Justice in The Hague The Mandate authorities began to internalize the fact that the realization of the dream of the Jewish home would not be simple, and that there was an Arab population hostile to the Zionist idea. As far as they were concerned, handing over the electricity concession to the Zionist institutions constituted improper and politically problematic discrimination, and handing over the concession to a private person without a tender was problematic in terms of proper administrative procedures. Throughout the negotiations, the parties tended to view the presentation of the Zionist Organization as the recipient of the concession, and the presentation of Rutenberg as a private entrepreneur. The dilemma arose when a former Ottoman citizen of Greek origin sued the Mandatory authorities at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, claiming that the concession to Rutenberg had lost its rights by virtue of a concession he had acquired from the Ottoman Empire. According to him, handing over the concession harmed his interests and that of the entire non-Jewish population. In response to the International Court of Justice, all parties were careful to claim that the concessionaire was a private entrepreneur and not an ethnic group. Both Rutenberg and Weizmann told the Mandatory authorities that they had no authorization to declare that there was no connection between the franchisee, private entrepreneur Rutenberg and the Zionist Organization, and that it was a business venture that would serve the entire population, including the Arab population. But things were not so simple. Rutenberg traveled to 'Eretz Israel' then Palestine, in 1919 to prepare the preliminary research. They needed to know how to take advantage of the natural resources there as well as how it would be possible to make an electric power plant.
The Battle Passes to the British Parliament
Rutenberg wanted to raise the capital needed to fund the project and start the practical work, but then the British press and parliament exploded a public scandal over the granting of the concessions. A wave of anti-semitism spread. They all talked about the international Jewish connection, and as evidence showed the involvement of High Commissioner Herbert Samuel, who was in fact a Zionist leader and the driving force behind the promotion of the electricity project. Members of the pro-Arab lobby presented the electricity plant as a symbol of discrimination against the Arab population. Rutenberg left everything and hurried to London to present his position. He stressed that the Land of Israel is poor and that it is a public philanthropic operation that is supposed to raise Jewish capital for the benefit of all the residents of the country and their welfare, including the Arabs, and to remove the burden from the shoulders of the British taxpayer. The public debate spilled over to the issue of electricity and the parliament debated the seriousness of the question of the price of the commitment to establish a Jewish national home in the Land of Israel. The Balfour Declaration, a public statement issued by the British government during World War I announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, was presented as an international Jewish conspiracy that would impose a heavy financial burden on the British taxpayer and would result in a policy of discrimination against the Arab public and its transformation into the enemy of the British Empire. Balfour tried to repel the attacks and delivered a speech in Parliament that defended Zionism. His speech did not persuade the members of parliament who claimed, among other things, that the nature of the immigrants to the Land of Israel made it a Bolshevik nest. It seemed that the pro-Arab lobby had the upper hand and the very justification for the existence of the national home as a whole was in danger. Then Winston Churchill stood up to speak. He sang a song of praise for Zionism and the electric project as representing all its goodness. In his speech, he combined both the Arab lobby and those who cared for the taxpayer's pocket. The main points of the speech were: "No one doubts the duty of the British Empire to develop the Land of Israel, but who will be charged the financial burden? The British taxpayer? Or perhaps the Arab public that has lived in the country for hundreds of years and has not lifted a finger to develop it. True, Rutenberg is a Jew, and he recruited businessmen and Jewish capitalists to develop the natural resources of the Land of Israel and create jobs for its Arab residents, but is it therefore necessary to disqualify his vision?" And from there he went on to break the personality of someone who was presented as a "Russian Communist." Churchill, known for his hatred of the Bolsheviks, found Rotenberg a worthy partner. He told members of parliament that Rutenberg served in a command post in the government of Kerensky, the democrat and supporter of Britain, and in his capacity advised him to ban and suspend Lenin and Trotsky. To all the laughter of those present, he said that "I did not know this detail in his life when I agreed to grant him the requested concession." Churchill's victory was overwhelming and public opinion also changed. In retrospect it turns out that the use of the pro-Arab lobby on electricity concessions as a lever to torpedo the building of the national home was a mistake, since removing the issue from the agenda also removed the question of justifying the establishment of the Jewish home. In a footnote we note that Churchill had a very good opinion of Zionism, but a very bad opinion of the Arabs and Islam. WARNING: In the following text there is not a trace of politically correctness: Churchill said, among other things, that "where the Arab comes, the desert often comes. In addition to fanaticism which is dangerous to man ... archaic habits, old farming methods, slow trading methods, and property insecurity exist wherever the Prophet's believers live and exist. ... The fact that in Muhammad's laws every woman must belong to a certain man as his absolute property ... hinders the extinction of slavery until the end of Islam being a great force among human beings." Churchill went on to say that he had met Arabs with excellent qualities, but the harmful influence of their religion harmed them and their development. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he predicted: "Islam is an inciting and violent faith, and it has already spread through Central Africa, raising warriors without fear in every way ... the civilization of modern Europe may fall just as the Roman civilization fell."
The Battle for Funding
After the issue of the arrangements was settled, Rutenberg turned to the next stage, which turned out to be the most difficult of all: raising huge sums needed to realize the dream. All along he claimed to British public opinion that it was a philanthropic operation financed by Jewish capital, but the Zionist institutions and wealthy Jewish people backed out in the end. Rutenberg tried unsuccessfully to raise money from the Zionist Organization headed by Weizmann, from tycoons close to the Zionist movement, and even from the American group headed by Justice Brandeis, who at the time was an opposition to Weizmann. In the period of the attempt to raise funds, the conflict between him and Chaim Weizmann began.
Shaltiel writes about the rift between the two men, and how Weitzmann had a difficult time forming relationships with powerful men, like that of Ben-Gurion. (Shaltiel, p. 150). Rutenberg's biography contains quotes that reveal the problematic relationship, the characters and weaknesses of the two: Weizmannn on Rutenberg: "His opinion is confused and he is guided only by one principle: lust for power, he uses methods that he learned in a school that is not ours, and I am very disturbed by what I heard about him in Italy." Not a particularly subtle hint of Rutenberg's revolutionary / terrorist past. Rutenberg replied and threatened explicitly: "If I start with something, I am used to continuing it to the end, I am stronger than you "(ibid., P. 149). "I will fight you openly and publicly and you know that my strength is at my disposal to kill you" (ibid., P. 155). A significant part of the story of the establishment of the Israel Electric Corporation deals with the endless quarrels of everyone involved in the project. In a matter of speaking it is like a man grabing his neighbor's throat: Rutenberg vs. Weizmann. Weizmann vs. Judge Brandeis. Rutenberg joined Judge Brandeis and then a rabbi with him. Right against left, people of the land against the people of the Diaspora. The question is how, in the heat of the endless quarrels, were they able to produce electricity, not to mention the establishment of a state? Historian Prof. Yehuda Bauer developed a thesis that Jewish culture is based on internal contradictions, and the conflicts characterize the Jewish people. In an interview with the journalist Dalia Karpel in the Haaretz supplement of February 15, 2013, he states: "It begins with the struggle between true prophets and false prophets, the split of the United Kingdom into two rival kingdoms that fought each other, disputes between the Sadducees and the Pharisees, Before the Great Revolt, etc. If we are deprived of the constant ability to fight, we will be destroyed, the endless debates of the Middle Ages are the animals of this people. " (4) In the end, Rutenberg gave up on the Zionist Organization and its tycoons, and raised money from Jewish businessmen from the City of London, headed by Lord Melchett and his close friend, Lord Redding, after whom a street in Tel Aviv was named. Many of the investors were Jews, but most of them had little connection to Zionism and their main concern was financial. The shares of the Israel Electric Corporation were traded on the London Stock Exchange and the offices of the management were also there.
Crony Capitalism
The electricity is flowing: On June 10, 1923, the first power station in Israel was completed. The station was built in Tel Aviv, and in 1925 two additional power stations were established, one in Haifa and the other in Tiberias. On page 115 of his book, "Ir Kama," devoted to the beginnings of the city of Tel Aviv, the writer and historian Shlomo Shva describes the excitement of the city's residents regarding the 'miracle of electricity': "In the spring of 1923, Tel Avivians, old and young, watched with great curiosity the latest installation works of the city of Tel Aviv, the electricity in their city stretched along Allenby Street and hung the lamps, telling them that they would each light up like a hundred candles, Rutenberg came to the transformer in the corner of Binyamin and Allenby Street, pressed a button and six lamps lit up Allenby Street and Nahalat Binyamin Street: electricity in Tel Aviv! The crowd gathered outside cheered for Rutenberg, and then Rutenberg entered Altshuler's house, The workers and the people from the crowd carried Rutenberg on their hands to his car, and the next day Rutenberg went to the train station, accompanied by his office officials, and the workers traveled in front of him with bicycles decorated with flowers. The people of Tel Aviv went out to the street, admiring and enjoying themselves, but did not rush to bring electricity into their homes because the expenses were large." In the years 1927-1932, a power plant was established in Naharayim that was operated by the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers and became the first modern hydroelectric power station in the Middle East. The production capacity of the three water turbines at the station was 18 megawatts, about five times the total production capacity of the first power plants. This enabled the IEC to successfully respond to demand from its customers and for the needs of the developing country. On the land near Naharayim, residential neighborhoods were established for the station's employees and their families. Rutenberg was known for his concern for the welfare of IEC employees, but also for the aesthetics of the electricity installations built by the company. He recruited the best architects of the period, including Richard Kaufman and Erich Mendelssohn, who designed the buildings of the Electric Company and their aesthetic quality is evident to this day. (5) On June 9, 1932, important guests arrived at the opening ceremony of the station in Naharayim, but no official representative of the Jewish leadership was invited. Weizmann held a grudge against Rutenberg about the exclusion of the Zionist Organization and did not forgive him all his life, even though the Zionist Organization was unable and perhaps not interested in financing the electricity project. The IEC was a profitable business and raised questions of capital and government. Shaltiel writes about Rutenberg, who came to Israel in 1919 as a destitute refugee who conducted research for the Zionist Organization and at its expense on page 379: "At that time he was already a very well-off man: he was not one of those who hid their wealth and the house he built in those days. Rutenberg got rich from the electricity business. His salary was £ 8,000 a year.” We were fortunate to interview Yitzhak Berman, the 99-year-old Knesset speaker and energy minister, in March 2013. Berman remembers Rutenberg well and the visit he made at his home in Rosh Hacarmel as an Irgun representative in reconciliation talks initiated by Rutenberg with members of the Haganah:"I remember meeting him when there were disputes between the Haganah and the Irgun. He intervened in order to pacify them so they wouldn't argue. I was a guest at his house and I do not understand why he needed such a big house with so many servants, like a Lord. He led a life of a real Lord.” To Rutenberg's credit it is said that in his will he left his home, his money and his assets to a fund that aims to promote the education of youth, which is "the hope of our future" and his private home became an educational center. In 1954, the Government acquired (under pressure from the company's director Avraham Rutenberg, his brother Pinchas, and Lord Herbert Samuel, who served as Chairman of the Board) 95% stake in the company. Nationalization occurred. In practice, the leadership of the young state had no choice because the waves of immigration and the expansion of the economy required huge investments that were beyond the power of the Israel Electric Corporation at the time. After the nationalization of the company and compensation of the shareholders, the company transferred the center of the board from London to Israel and since then they have been members of the Israeli board of directors.
The Dark Knight
Shaltiel writes in his book, “Basic facts in Rutenberg's life remain obscure. Those close to him and those who worked with him did not know, for example, clear details of his marital status. All his life in the Land of Israel Rutenberg lived alone. This fit well into the image of the public figure who works for the sake of his people, whose whole life is devoted to its building and development. This concealment evoked the imagination of writers and nurtured rumors and stories and gossip "(Shaltiel, p. 17). Sir Ronald Storrs, the first military governor of Jerusalem, described his outward appearance and impression on his surroundings: "Burning eyes, physical strength, a thick neck, radiant power and stability, Rutenberg was described as a tough, determined, very determined, and even a more determined man who always wore black and the few words he had, he used to say in a low, menacing voice.” (Shaltiel, p. 15). It is known that in Russia he married Olga Homenko, a devout Christian, and the couple had three children. Olga disliked her husband's electric obsession, moved with her children to the United States, and they cut off contact with him. In his will he turned to the children of his brother Abraham and instructed them to be loyal sons of his people, his humble and modest servants, and those who said Kaddish at his grave. In his book "Yamai Or," Ben Zion Dikowski (p. 69), the veteran employee of the company, tells of the admirable manager: "Rutenberg was a self-contained man, he was very kind and polite, but I can not believe that there was someone who really knew him and knew his inner world. In other words, he loved to hear and not to speak. His ' charm' also worked on ... women. Rutenberg lived in his own room in an old building in the center of the courtyard, where his office was, and on the roof was his personal room where he slept, and ate his meals. And I saw women and girls who came to his room at night, not to name the women who came from the best aristocracy of Tel Aviv, Olga Homenko I remember very well, both beautiful and famous. His great weakness for women led him to acts not so nice, and the most extreme example of this is the affair and relationship with Liza. The company hired a young German named Yasha Lev. Yasha brought with him Liza, a beautiful girl who soon became acquainted with the social circles of small Tel Aviv. When she separated from Yasha Lev, Yekutiel Baharav, Rutenberg's right-hand man, began to woo her, and at the same time she also had relations with Rutenberg. Finally she married Baharav. Rutenberg's reaction was furious. He removed Baharab, who until then had been his right hand and one of the company's senior managers, and ordered him to be seated in a separate room in the main office in Haifa. According to his order, Baharab was not given letters and documents, and in fact he was deprived of all his powers and functions. Thus he sat for years in his room, imprisoned like a prisoner, until Rutenberg died. " (Dikowski, pp. 71-70). The story of the trio of lovers is featured, in details and names, in the excellent film by director Eli Cohen, "Eash ha Hashmal". (The Electric Man) Ayelet Zorer played the character of Liza, Menashe Noy was Rutenberg, Mark Ivanir was his brother Avraham, and Lior Ashkenazi played the character of Baharab. Baharav, after whom a street was named in the industrial zone in Haifa, was not just a senior employee in the company but someone who worked alongside Rutenberg since the beginning of the road in 1919, accompanied the whole process of obtaining the concessions and was one of the seven founders of the Israel Electric Corporation. Baharav, the son of one of the founders of Ahuzat Bayit, was a graduate of the first graduating class of the Gymnasia Herzliya and a good friend of Moshe Sharet and Eliyahu Golomb who studied in his class. In Eliahu Golomb's biography (6), Baharav is described as having connected the founders of the Haganah and Rutenberg, and set up the facilities of the Israel Electric Corporation for the benefit of the fighters. Baharav shared his distress with his friends and Sharett's archive contained a letter that comforted him with the words: "My dear brother Yekutiel, What can I tell you? All my soul, my thoughts and my emotions, with you and for you! Be strong and do not let go! No one like you will hold on to the thicket and fall. Do not be afraid to lie, do not be afraid of forgery… But that is why I yearn for all the strength of my soul to be with you now, to feed and to soften. But whether I do it or not, you do what you once decided. Be firm! There is no supreme deed as a life-sustenance, as a creation of life, as a war of destruction. In all the confusion and storm that you are entangled in - the sign of a clear mind, a supreme inner logic. Know what is before you! More precisely: Know your destiny, set yourself, do not blur your being with her, do not diminish your image with her. And the spirit of energy and youth and the courage of hope in the future, which beats in all of us - will be in your right. "(7)
The Leader
Lyrics and melody Mordechai Zeira: At the time, an electric company employee: The old man, the old man, the old man from Nahariam He set up the factory. There was nothing there, Nothing, only water And now, there is electricity. (8) Rutenberg was known as the "old man" before the age of 50, and thus joined the respected club of personalities such as Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Sadeh, who were called "the old man" in their 50s - 40s, a sign of turning them into a myth in their lifetime. But in labeling him as a "The old man of Nahariam" - the man who gave the country electricity, there is a diminution and underestimation, of the figure of a national leader and one of the first members of the Haganah. Storrs, the first military governor of Jerusalem, described him in his diary as similar to the Sphinx in Egypt, thick-headed and hard granite rock, "In an emergency Jews and Arabs obeyed him as a leader. " (9) Twice in times of crisis was he called to head the National Committee - the executive branch of the leadership of the Yishuv. For the first time he was elected to head the National Council during the bloody riots of 1929, when the Jewish community understood the depth of the crisis and the conflict with the Arab public. The second time was in 1939, at the most difficult time of the Jewish people, during World War II. What caused the representatives of all the political factions who struggled with each other, to choose one man, Rutenberg, the man outside the political-party system, to lead them? The strongest political force in the community was the Zionist Left Bloc and the leader was Berl Katznelson. Between Berl and Rutenberg, warm ties were formed, thanks to his wise and far-sighted economic vision, also the first to invest NIS 1,000 from the workers' money in the electricity project, and this expression of trust will be the basis for the deep connection between the two. The deep bond between them and the secret of the Rutenbergian charm: "Berl loved Rutenberg, an SR man, the unique, impulsive, unpredictable type, the revolutionary who was small in the face of his greatness, yet clung to it faithfully with a penitent. The revolutionary in Berlin found in Rutenberg the personality he loved. The greatest constructivist - the partner who thinks in earth-embracing terms. There was, in Rutenberg, primordial power, impressive power. Indeed, the size of the man - the size of his weaknesses. The storms that stirred him and aroused him in others made him one of the most difficult people to talk to, so much so that many preferred to avoid it. But in times of emergency they would turn to him and ask for his help, his unique energy, his ability to influence Jews and foreigners far from Zionism. " (10) The right-wing parties also liked and admired Rutenberg, who collaborated with their leader Jabotinsky in the days of the Jewish battalions and during the events of April 1920 in Jerusalem, when they both ran the defense of the Jewish community in the city. As for the civilian public, the industrialists and the so-called "homeowners", he did have a revolutionary socialist past, but in practice he was an economic entrepreneur and a businessman. In his projects, Rutenberg behaved as a capitalist in every respect and fought stubbornly and with considerable success in all his employees' attempts to organize themselves.
National Unity
Shaltiel relates in his book about Rutenberg's loathing and contempt for politics, the parties and what he called "talk-versus-action". Rutenberg states: "I hate party politics with all my soul and my whole being." ( Shaltiel, page 582 in a speech he delivered on July 17, 1940). Ruthenberg's trademark as a leader was the pair of words "national unity." For a person who connected between the Irgun (Ezel) and the Haganna, it was not an empty slogan. The writer AB Yehoshua wrote a play called "Hilchoo, Shnaim Yahdav," which tells how Rutenberg tried to bridge between Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky in London in 1934. The two men succeeded in reaching an agreement But Ben-Gurion failed to implement the agreement, which was rejected by his people by a majority vote. The problem with party hatred and the call for unity is also the negation of the democratic system, which Churchill said about it. "Democracy is the worst system of government that exists, apart from all the other methods of government that have been tried to this day." In other words, when you dislike political parties and politics, you mean dictatorship.Shaltiel asserts that, "Rutenberg's simple, even simplistic formulas have always had a strong appeal that worked on the same elements of society that the press, and sometimes even the sociologists, call 'people from the street'" (Shaltiel, p. 591). More blatantly, the High Commissioner wrote in an internal report to London on Rutenberg's leadership: "Indeed, large portions of Rutenberg's speech are read like Hitler's routine attacks on the functioning of democracy" (p. 592). Ben-Gurion also did not choose his words wisely in a letter to Paula: "How puzzling and ridiculous that Rutenberg has now found a need to attack the attempt to reorganize the Yishuv by elections and again the attempt to 'unite' a-la Mussolini" (ibid., P. 593) . It should not be forgotten, however, that the days were difficult and Rutenberg truly believed that such times should be united. On 7 November 1940, he convened a press conference and gave a speech entitled "To the Yishuv" : "every hour of every day we can fall, the left and the right, the rich and the poor " (Ibid., At p. 59) The existential threat in which the people are subjected is that they have persuaded themselves to assume the ungrateful role of the leadership. In a letter to Herbert Samuel, who served as chairman of the Israel Electric Corporation, “You are well acquainted with the life of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel. However, this life has never been so complicated, pathological, illusory, and devoid of organization and order. The Yishuv must reorganize on the basis of tangible and genuine interests, and not on the basis of baseless power and fanatical party base and politics. This is no small matter. I had to take on this task in every way. Even from the perspective of the IEC's interests. Here everything is connected to one another "(ibid., At p. 53) Rutenberg's leadership is also characterized by the fact that he, like other leaders who preferred to bury their heads in the sand, did not ignore the existence of the Arab population. In a letter to Herbert Samuel of 1936, he left his credo on the subject: "Nineteen years (since the Balfour Declaration), we Jews have done nothing to deal with the moral and psychological aspects of the fact that we are coming to a land where the Arabs have very serious national claims, and there is a new generation of young people who can not be bribed. , Pride, a little culture and courage "(ibid., P. 457). His attitude toward the "Arab problem" is characterized by the hard-to-decipher Rutenberg idioms. Is the man who began his life as a terrorist was what they define today as a "dove"? He believed in co-existence and said that hatred demanded and existed: the electricity company employed Arabs and the first beneficiaries of the electricity were the Arabs of Jaffa. The "five group" were five influential figures in the Yishuv who took an independent, nonpartisan initiative and tried unsuccessfully to conduct dialogue and negotiations with the Arab leadership. The five were Dr. Magnes, Judge Gad Frumkin, Moshe Novomeysky, Moshe Smilansky and Pinchas Rutenberg. They believed that any local agreement between the two peoples was preferable to a solution imposed from the outside. Rutenberg argued that non-discriminatory economic development would solve the dispute accompanied by massive mobilization of moderate leadership. In his experience, he concluded that most of the Arab public did not object to the Jews but was led by an extremist and violent leadership financed by the Bolsheviks and the enemies of Britain. On the other hand, how can one label the "dove" as the man who pressed the British to take a hard hand against the rioters and assassinate the Mufti of al-Husseini and his top supporters, and even offered his good services to carry out the mission. He was one of the heads of the Haganah and placed the IEC's means at its disposal. His personality seemed to be too complex for the usual settings. Twice, Rutenberg came to the leadership because of a national consensus, and twice his term ended in disappointment. The second time he finished his term he was also fighting a medical condition: A short time before his resignation, Rutenberg, the heavy smoker, had a malignant tumor in his throat that led to his death at the age of 63. His good friend Berl tried to explain Rutenberg's failure as a leader in that he never reconciled himself to the Sisyphean character of political activity, and Shaltiel asserts that Rutenberg's weakness is to a large extent a testimony to the power and control of the "party key" in the Yishuv (ibid., P. 20). Shaltiel sums up: "At the end of the calculation, Rutenberg deserves to be judged by the rules he has set for himself ... Not the speech is the main thing, but the act. The impression of the landscape. " (Ibid., 20). Rutenberg's favorite saying was: "There are people who make history and there are people who are swept by it." The study of his history reveals that there is no doubt that he was one of the doers.he rift between the two men, and how Weitzmann had a difficult time forming relationships with powerful men, like that of Ben-Gurion. (Shaltiel, p. 150). Rutenberg's biography contains quotes that reveal the problematic relationship, the characters and weaknesses of the two: Weizmannn on Rutenberg: "His opinion is confused and he is guided only by one principle: lust for power, he uses methods that he learned in a school that is not ours, and I am very disturbed by what I heard about him in Italy." Not a particularly subtle hint of Rutenberg's revolutionary / terrorist past. Rutenberg replied and threatened explicitly: "If I start with something, I am used to continuing it to the end, I am stronger than you "(ibid., P. 149). "I will fight you openly and publicly and you know that my strength is at my disposal to kill you" (ibid., P. 155). A significant part of the story of the establishment of the Israel Electric Corporation deals with the endless quarrels of everyone involved in the project. In a matter of speaking it is like a man grabing his neighbor's throat: Rutenberg vs. Weizmann. Weizmann vs. Judge Brandeis. Rutenberg joined Judge Brandeis and then a rabbi with him. Right against left, people of the land against the people of the Diaspora. The question is how, in the heat of the endless quarrels, were they able to produce electricity, not to mention the establishment of a state? Historian Prof. Yehuda Bauer developed a thesis that Jewish culture is based on internal contradictions, and the conflicts characterize the Jewish people. In an interview with the journalist Dalia Karpel in the Haaretz supplement of February 15, 2013, he states: "It begins with the struggle between true prophets and false prophets, the split of the United Kingdom into two rival kingdoms that fought each other, disputes between the Sadducees and the Pharisees, Before the Great Revolt, etc. If we are deprived of the constant ability to fight, we will be destroyed, the endless debates of the Middle Ages are the animals of this people. " (4) In the end, Rutenberg gave up on the Zionist Organization and its tycoons, and raised money from Jewish businessmen from the City of London, headed by Lord Melchett and his close friend, Lord Redding, after whom a street in Tel Aviv was named. Many of the investors were Jews, but most of them had little connection to Zionism and their main concern was financial. The shares of the Israel Electric Corporation were traded on the London Stock Exchange and the offices of the management were also there.
Written by: Aliza Gruenbaum | Translated by: Noa Brecher
