Jacobus H. Kann, of the Hague, veteran Zionist leader, and the first Zionist in Holland, is receiving felicitations on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.
One of the first to join Dr. Theodore Herzl when he started the Zionist Organization, Mr. Kann founded the Dutch Zionist Federation.
At nineteen years of age, Mr. Kann was already head of the big Hague banking house of Lissa and Kann, which has played such an important part in the financial life of the country.
As a prominent banker he took an active part in the founding of the Jewish Colonial Trust and the Anglo-Palestine Company, of which he was a director. From 1905 till 1918 he was a member of the Actions Committee and from 1905 till 1911 of the Zionist Executive. He was an intimate friend of Dr. Wolffsohn, who succeeded Dr. Herzl as President of the Zionist Organizaton.
In 1907, he visited Palestie and two years later he published his impressions of the country in a book entitled “Eretz Isracl.”
After the War, Mr. Kann found himself in disagreement with the methods of Palestine colonization, and withdrew from active Zionist work. In 1923 he went to Palestine as Dutch Consul there, and retained the post till last year, since when he has again been living at The Hague.
Mr. Kann has plaed an important part in the life of his country, and in 1925 the Queen of Holland conferred on him a Knighthood of the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands, in recognition of his services during the War. At the outbreak of the War, he had placed himself entirely at the services of the Dutch Government, and at the express wish of Dr. Treub, then Minister of Finance, he acted as President of the Exchange Commission, set up in 1914, which maintained the stability of Dutch finances.
Mr. Kann has also done a great deal for the educational life of The Hague. He was one of the closest friends and collaborators of the great Dutch educationalist Jan Ligthart, and The Hague owes to him its School Union, the Netherlands High School, and The Hague School for Girls.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
