Archive of Pinchas and Avraham Rutenberg

Pinchas Rutenberg (1879-1942) was an engineer, pioneer of modern industry in Eretz Israel and founder of the electricity company. He was one of the initiators of the Jewish Legion. When he made aliya in 1919, he did a survey of all of the water sources, and proposed thorough plans for development of water industries, drainage, damming, ground development, and building power plants between the Litani river and the Dead Sea. He was one of the founders of the Hagana, one of its first commanders, and head of the National Council. In 1923, he founded Palestine’s Electricity Company when he received a permit to use the waters of the Jordan and Yarmuch waters, and built a hydro-electric power plant in Naharayim; he also built power plants which provided electricity for Tel-Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa and Tiberias. Later, he built the motor-driven Power Plants “Reading” in Tel Aviv and “Haifa A” in Haifa.
Avraham Rutenberg, Pinchas’s younger brother, worked as a surveyor in Jordan, and was also involved with the Hagana. He helped it by purchasing equipment, and by making the power plant available for production of weapons and warfare. He was the chairman of the power plant after Pinchas’s death.
The archives contains thousands of items in various languages, from the 20s-40s: several passports of the Rutenberg brothers, approx. 100 photographs, mostly connected to building power plants, showing industrial buildings and machinery, building plans, newspaper cuttings, wide correspondence about a variety of subjects: reports, licenses, receipts, requests and personal correspondence. The documents include letters signed by Chaim Weizmann, Herbert Samuel, HaRav Kook, Lord Reading, David Yellin and more. The collection includes many handwritten documents as well as postcards and envelopes.