Two Jewish personalities quietly celebrated their 70th birthday here today. One is Moshe Smiliansky, noted Hebrew writer and president of the Jewish Farmers Association, and the other is Dr. Arthur Hantke, director of the Keren Hayesod.
Smiliansky came to Palestine from Russia in 1890 and was one of the first farm laborers in the first Jewish settlement, Rishon-Le-Zion. He has greatly contributed to the cultural and agricultural development of Palestine. On 1934, on his sixtieth birthday, a colony Kfar Moshe was founded in his honor and the British Government made him a member of the Order of the British Empire.
Dr. Hantke, who was born in Berlin, was a pre-Herzlian Zionist and one of the founders of the Zionist movement in Germany. He was a member of the Inner Actions Committee for ten years and a member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish National Fund for five years. From 1922 he directed the activities of the Keren Hayesod in Central Europe and since 1926 he has been the managing director of the World Keren Hayesod in Jerusalem. He is also a director of the Anglo-Palestine Bank.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
