Aaron Aaronsohn

Aaron Aaronsohn (1876 to 1919) was a Romanian-born Jewish agronomist, botanist and political activist who lived most of his life in Zikhron Ya'akov. Born in Bacău, he was brought to Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, at the age of six, and after studying agriculture in France with the sponsorship of Baron Edmond de Rothschild he worked at the colony of Metulla. With a member of the German Templer community he launched a business importing agricultural machines such as reapers, harrows and combine harvesters, and another company sold pumps, a cream separator and fertilizers. He mapped the botany of Palestine and its surroundings, and on a 1906 field trip to Mount Hermon he discovered wild emmer, Triticum dicoccoides, which he considered the mother of wheat. The find made him world famous and brought backing for a research station at Atlit, established in 1909. He also founded and led the NILI espionage network.