Rutenberg and the Jordan river: a revolution in hydro‐electricity

Abstract

The first practical scheme of Jordan River development is intimately connected with the name of one man: Pinchas Rutenberg. The succession of events that led to the approval of the massive hydroelectric scheme for Palestine was not his doing alone, but his actions helped make things happen and therefore the focus is on his activities. Rutenberg formulated the idea of Jordan River development, but without a power figure in government ready to push the idea through, the plan would have floundered. The influential figure in this case was Winston S. Churchill, then Colonial Secretary of Great Britain (1921-22). What we have therefore is the conjunction of two needs and two men, each with his own agenda. To add to the complexity, all this took place within the context of a double government bureaucracy, the mandatory government in Palestine and the Colonial Office in London. Within the Colonial Office, Rutenberg found other backers, although on a lower political level and on a more hesitant level of commitment than the Colonial Secretary. Some senior members of the Middle East Department saw the promise in Rutenberg's plan. Their expert and detailed minutes played a strong part in influencing Churchill. They also remained in their positions after Churchill lost his, and so could continue to influence the future Colonial Secretaries. The primary documents on which this study is based are mostly from the British Colonial Office, supplemented by the Zionist Archives. The task of sifting through the voluminous and often tediously repetitive material confirmed for this researcher that, without the perseverance of Rutenberg, the revolution of hydroelectricity in Palestine would never have occurred. This article proposes to trace Rutenberg's activities and to analyse his contributions to modernizing the British mandate. Pinchas Rutenberg was born in the Ukraine, studied engineering in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) and joined the revolutionary underground. After graduating, he worked in an armaments plant. He took a prominent part in the uprising of 1905, the abortive trial run of the Russian Revolution, by diverting weapons from his plant to the underground. After the failure of the uprising, he went back to university, specializing in hydro-technology and dam construction. After graduating he built water reservoirs and dams in Italy.