Selig Soskin

Selig Soskin (1873 to 1959) was an Israeli agronomist and early Zionist who championed intensive farming on small plots. Born in Churubash in Crimea, then part of the Russian Empire, he studied agronomy in Germany and in 1896 settled in Ottoman Palestine as a plantation expert for Hovevei Zion, helping found Be'er Tuvia and planting eucalyptus to drain the swamps of Hadera. He advised on agriculture in German South West Africa from 1906 to 1915 and directed the settlement department of the Jewish National Fund from 1918 to 1923. In 1934 he helped found Nahariya, where he ran an experimental intensive farm, and in later years he promoted hydroponics, setting up a station at Ramat Gan in 1945. He received the Israel Prize in agriculture in 1958.