Politicsאברהם גרנות

Avraham Granot

Avraham Granot was a Zionist activist, economist and Israeli politician who signed Israel's Declaration of Independence and headed the Jewish National Fund.

1890 to 1962Signing the Declaration of IndependenceLeading the Jewish National FundLand and agrarian policy

Born: 19 June 1890, Florești
Died: 5 July 1962, Jerusalem
Occupation: politician, pedagogue, economist, lawyer
Party: Progressive Party
Education: University of Lausanne, University of Fribourg, Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium

Avraham Granot was born in 1890 in Florești

Granot was born Abraham Granovsky in 1890 in Bessarabia, then part of the Russian Empire. He spent his childhood in Odessa. In 1907 he moved with his family to the Land of Israel and studied at Gymnasia Herzliya.

In 1911 he went to Switzerland to study law and economics at the universities of Fribourg and Lausanne. He earned a doctorate in 1917.

He worked for the Jewish National Fund in the Netherlands and settled in Jerusalem in 1922. He worked with Menachem Ussishkin and became director-general of the fund in 1940. He also lectured on agrarian policy at the Hebrew University and chaired the board of Mekorot from 1943 to 1961.

In 1948 he was a member of the People's Council and signed the Declaration of Independence. He opposed selling the lands of abandoned villages to private hands. A founder of the Progressive Party, he was elected to the first Knesset in 1949 and re-elected in 1951, but resigned soon after.

In 1960 he was elected chairman of the JNF Board of Directors. He died in Jerusalem in 1962. The Neve Granot neighborhood in Jerusalem is named after him.