Simcha Blass

In 1948 the United Nations bequeathed the mandate of Palestine to the Jewish people, changing the name to Israel. The Zionists (Jews who sought a Jewish homeland) had already planted many seeds there, with Jewish communities throughout the region, but now they would also have control of the government. While the Zionists were ecstatic to have a country to call their own, the fact remained that Israel included a large amount of infertile land. Thankfully, for the Israeli’s, the Zionists had Simcha Blass amongst its ranks. Blass was born in 1897 in Warsaw, Poland. His family was rather wealthy, his maternal grandfather was a Polish Noble, and Blass received the best education in Torah studies and the Arts and Sciences. At the age of 17 he began studying engineering at the Wawelberg-Rotband Mechanical-Technical Institute. The First World War interrupted his University career as he was drafted to the Polish Army as a private, he would finish the war as a colonel. After the war Blass went on to finish his education and earn a degree in engineering (Stanford). Blass finally moved to Israel, then Palestine, in the 1920’s and quickly took up a role in the country’s agricultural sciences. His first project involved inventing an implement for planting wheat that had had crop yield 300 percent larger than average. This project would only be the beginning of his efforts to change his new state into one that was totally self-sufficient (Stanford). In the late 1920’s, Blass moved to Deganyah Bet, a small community on Lake Kineret (the only fresh water site in Israel) and it was there that his passion for water technologies began. Over the next thirty years, Blass and his colleagues designed a pipe system that would bring the waters of the Kineret all over Israel. By the time 1950 rolled around, Blass was already a major player in the country building of Israel. However, his greatest contribution to the country, and the world was yet to come (Canadian