Engineer Shlomo Kaplansky was the legendary director of the Technion. He held this position for almost 20 years and was at the head of the Technion during the events that preceded the establishment of the state and the young state’s first years.
But even before that he was a central figure in the Zionist enterprise, as one of the leaders of the “Poale Zion” party, which was a central force in the Zionist enterprise. Kaplansky was born in 1884 in Bialystok. As a high school student, he was already active in the Zionist movement and studied Hebrew. During his course of engineering studies at the Vienna Polytechnic Institute he established the Austrian branch of the “Poale Zion” party. In 1912 he immigrated to the Land of Israel and was among the members of the first group that settled in its territory and served as a member of the National Committee, which was essentially a sort of executive authority of the Assembly of Representatives under the British mandate. Before he was appointed the director of the Technion, he was the director of the settlement department of the Zionist administration.
But it was his role as director of the Technion, in such a turbulent and significant period, that earned him worldwide fame. During the time of his leadership, the Technion’s status as an academic institution was established, the faculties of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and chemical engineering were established, and during this period the Technion expanded and took in many scientists who fled the threat of Nazi rule in Germany.
He even facilitated training at various levels; under his management the Bosmat vocational high school and the maritime school next to the Technion were opened. He accompanied academic visitors from Israel and abroad, and his good relations with leaders in Israel and abroad enabled him to promote the Technion. Kaplansky died suddenly, in 1950, when he was 66 years old. He was buried in Merhavia, the kibbutz that he founded, but his funeral procession left from the Technion and was accompanied by a large crowd of Haifaites.