Scienceטשרנה רייס

Tscharna Rayss

Tscharna Rayss was a Jewish-Israeli botanist who studied fungi and algae and became a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

1890 to 1965Study of fungi in IsraelDocumenting local algaeHebrew University flowerless plants laboratory

Occupation: botanist

Tscharna Rayss was born in 1890 in Vinnytsia

Tscharna Rayss was born in 1890 in Vinnytsia, in the Russian Empire, to Rachel and Shmuel Rayss. She grew up in a family with 2 children.

She studied at the University of Geneva, where she began working on fungi. She earned a doctorate in the study of algae under the Swiss botanist Robert Chodat.

During World War I she founded and ran a school for refugee children in Khotyn, Bessarabia. From 1918 to 1929 she led botany work at the universities of Odessa and Bucharest. In Romania she also published studies on plant diseases.

A Zionist, she moved to the Land of Israel in 1934 and joined the Hebrew University, where she set up a laboratory for flowerless plants. She documented local algae and fungi and was appointed associate professor in 1951. Her work on algae in fish ponds led to studies of the Sea of Galilee.

Her niece Rachel was killed in 1948 while fighting with Lehi. In 1949 Rayss created a scholarship in her name for botany and zoology students. Rayss died in Jerusalem in 1965 and was buried in Sanhedria.