Menachem Ussishkin

Avraham Menachem Mendel Ussishkin (also Ussishkin, born August 16, 1863 in Dubrowno in Russia; † October 2, 1941 in Jerusalem) was a Zionist leader, long-time president of the Jewish National Fund ( JNF ) and one of the pioneers of the movement.

Menachem Ussishkin was born in 1863 in Byelorussian shtetl in Czarist Russia Dubrowno. After studying in Moscow, he was engineer. In his youth he was an avid reader of contemporary Hebrew writers. From then on, the revival of Hebrew, one of the goals of his life work was.

Like many other early members of the Hibbat Zion, he was startled by the pogroms of 1881 in Russia, which led to him the need for Jewish Emigration in mind. Ussishkin began to work actively for various Zionist groups. After he had completed his engineering studies in Moscow at the Technological Institute, he devoted himself to the Hebrew educational work, the Zionist propaganda and the collection of money in Russia.

Ussishkin was a " practical " Zionist, for which the agricultural Settlements in Eretz Israel represented the first and most important step to obtaining a Jewish state. He recruited young people for working on as pioneers and agricultural settlements. He was a delegate to the First Zionist Congress in 1897 in Basel and secretary of the Congress was appointed Hebrew.

At the Seventh Congress ( 1905) he was one of those who forced the rejection of the Uganda plan. He suggested a Zionist program that was later adopted by the Zionist movement. Under his influence, the Zionist movement supported the establishment of agricultural settlements, educational and cultural facilities, and Hebrew University.

1919 Ussishkin settled himself in Eretz Israel. In 1922 he was elected chairman of the Jewish National Fund ( קרן קימת לישראל, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael, KKL, Jewish National Fund ) is selected, a position which he held for nearly twenty years. 1921-1923 he was chairman of the Jewish Agency (Chairman of Eretz Israel Executive), 1935-1941 Chairman of the World Zionist Organization ( WZO ).

Until recently active, died Ussishkin 1941. At his request, he was buried on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.