The Technion Timeline

The Relief Organization of German Jews, known as the “Ezra” company, was a non-Zionist German-Jewish organization that operated in the early 20th century to provide philanthropic aid to the Jews of Eastern Europe and Israel and to promote German culture among the Jews outside of Germany. The company was founded…Read More

After thinking for a long time about the location of the establishment of the technical school, Dr. Paul Nathan decided in favor of Haifa (Jerusalem was also on the agenda). At that time, the Turkish government began to invest in the port of Haifa and the railroads that passed through…Read More

After a visit to Palestine, American Jewish businessman and philanthropist Jacob Schiff decided to donate one hundred thousand dollars to the Technion. Schiff was then the most prominent Jewish leader in American Jewry. He had several conditions for the contribution: the institution must be objective and free from guiding ideas…Read More

In June 1908, the land purchase deal was signed. After deliberations, an area of 46 dunams was chosen. Ephraim Cohn, the representative of Ezra in Palestine, and Rafael Hakim, one of the most important merchants in Haifa, met with the representative of the Turkish government in a cafe in the…Read More

After the donation of the Wissotzky Foundation to the Technion, a fund was opened for the donation of other organizations. The Jewish National Fund participated in the purchase of the land and donated 100,000 francs and was also given representation on the school’s board of directors.

In 1909, Jewish architect Alexander Baerwald was asked to come up with a first plan for the new building. He was inspired by the idea of blending European form with Eastern elements, and despite the hardships of 1912, that year also marks the first cornerstone of Technion, laid in Haifa.…Read More

The Technikum buildings were used by various occupying armies during the war. Initially, they served the Turkish army during World War I, and later the German army. The Technikum buildings functioned as a Turkish-German fortification that was converted into an Ottoman hospital. After the British occupation, the buildings continued to…Read More

Almost from the beginning, the Technikum had two main creditors: the Hilfsverein (Ezra) group and the Jewish National Fund (KKL). With the outbreak of the First World War, the debt to the Jewish National Fund was canceled due to it being registered in an enemy country (England). The Ezra group,…Read More

Sir Alfred Mond, (Lord Melchett), was a Jewish statesman and industrialist in England, one of the world’s industrial powers at the time, and manager of companies in London and Canada. Lord Melchet was one of the leaders of Zionism in England. He was the guest of honor at the official…Read More

The development of technical and scientific opportunities for the Jewish people, and particularly for the new Technikum, was a cause that Professor Albert Einstein, a two-time Nobel laureate, felt was worth his investment. “The development of the Land of Israel is of immense importance to all Jewry,” he stated at…Read More

Arthur Blok (1882–1974) was a British-Jewish electrical engineer who served as the first President of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa from 1924 to 1925. Blok was the personal assistant to the renowned physicist John Fleming. In 1945, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of…Read More

In September, it was decided to accept Hayim Nahman Bialik’s proposal and name the technical school the “Technion” on the grounds that the word “technical” came to Greek from the Hebrew word “techen”. In 1945, the Hebrew Language Committee dealt with the question of whether it should be spelled with…Read More

Mordechai (Max) Hecker was a land developer, a Zionist engineer, a Polish Jew and one of the founders of the Technion. He was born in 1877 to a Jewish family in Hamburg, studied civil engineering and joined the Zionist student movement, where he met Frieda, who later became his wife.…Read More

Seventeen students, one female student among them, completed their studies at the Technion. This first graduating class includes ten engineers and seven are architects. Over the course of its 100-year existence, the Technion has graduated over 95,000 alumni from 18 faculties. In 1927/28, the first cohort of the Technion graduated.…Read More

Naturally, in the first years the need arose to find a symbol for the Technion, one that could decorate the letterhead and that could be worn on the lapel of the garment. In 1929, a prize competition was announced: first prize – 2 Palestine pounds, second prize – 1 Palestine…Read More

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…Read More

Prof. Luisa Bonfiglioli was a mythological lecturer in the mathematics department. She was accepted at the Technion after immigrating from Italy in 1933. She was a special teacher, a respected lecturer, and a particularly prolific researcher. In 1966 she won the Oppenheimer Prize for Descriptive Geometry.