Avraham Granot
Avraham Granot was a Zionist activist, Israeli politician and a signatory of the Israeli declaration of independence.Biography
Granot was born in Făleşti, in the Beletsky Uyezd of the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire. He attended Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv. In 1911, he traveled to Switzerland to study law and political economy at the University of Fribourg and University of Lausanne, graduating with a PhD in 1917.In 1919 he began working for the Jewish National Fund in The Hague, and was relocated to Jerusalem in 1922. Two years later he officially immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. He also lectured at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on agrarian policy. In 1940 he was appointed director-general of the JNF.
Granot was a member of the New Aliyah Party and one of the signers of the Israeli declaration of independence in 1948. In 1949, he was elected to the first Knesset as a member of the Progressive Party. He was re-elected in 1951, but resigned from the Knesset six weeks after the election. He was head of several public corporations, and sat on the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science.
In 1960, Granot was elected chairman of the JNF Board of Directors.Commemoration
, a neighborhood in Jerusalem near the Israel Museum is named for him. The main street is Avraham Granot Street.Books in English
