Pinhas Rutenberg

Pinhas Rutenberg (1879 to 1942) was a Russian-born Jewish businessman and hydraulic engineer who built the electric power system of Mandatory Palestine. Born in Romny in the Russian Empire, he first made his name as a revolutionary in the Socialist Revolutionary Party and, exiled in Italy, concentrated on hydraulic engineering. While in the United States during the First World War he completed a detailed design for using the hydraulic resources of the Land of Israel for irrigation and electrical power production. In 1921 the British granted him the Jaffa and later the Jordan River electricity concessions; in 1923 his Jaffa Electric Company built a grid covering Jaffa, Tel Aviv and neighbouring settlements, powered by diesel engines, and that year he founded the Palestine Electric Corporation, today the Israel Electric Corporation. His First Jordan Hydro-Electric Power House at Naharayim opened in 1930, and further power plants at Tel Aviv, Haifa and Tiberias supplied all of Palestine except Jerusalem. A large power station near Ashkelon is named after him.