Itzhak Arnon

Itzhak Arnon was born in 1909 in Antwerp

Itzhak Arnon was born Isaac Aharonowitz in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1909. His father was a diamond polisher. During World War I the family fled to London and later lived in rural England before returning to Antwerp.

He finished school in Antwerp and was active in the Zionist youth movement Bar Kochba. He studied agronomy at Gembloux and then served in the Belgian army cavalry, where he completed an officers course. In 1929 he married Hilda Gintzig.

In 1932 the couple immigrated to the Land of Israel. In 1933 he became inspector of the Mandatory government's agricultural experimental station in Acre, and he also worked at the station in Rehovot. In 1948 he established the agricultural station at Neve Yaar.

He earned his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1957. From 1958 he headed the Volcani Institute of Agricultural Research. He won the Zera Prize in 1965 and the Israel Prize in agriculture in 1971, and he later edited the Encyclopedia of Agriculture.

From 1971 he was a member of the French Académie d'Agriculture. He died in 2005.