Warburg, Otto

(1859–1938)

   Third president of the World Zionist Organization. A member of the wealthy and assimilated Hamburg banking family, Warburg became a distinguished professor of botany, and an adviser on German colonial settlement. In the Zionist Organization his interests lay in practical Jewish settlement rather than in political activity. He was active in establishing the Palestine office in Jaffa in 1908 under the direction of Dr Arthur RUPPIN; in the formation of the Palestine Land Development Company; and in setting up an Agricultural Research Station in Tel Aviv, later moved to Rehovot. In 1911, Warburg was elected president of the organization in place of David WOLFFSOHN, and took charge of its headquarters in Berlin. Though not a dynamic leader, he was a courteous, erudite and unassuming man who avoided factional disputes and was respected by all his colleagues. During World War I, he used his German contacts to try and alleviate the hardships of the Palestine Jews under Germany’s ally, Turkey.

   He gave up the presidency in 1920 and in the next few years divided his time between Berlin and Palestine, where he was head of the botany department of the Hebrew University and co-director of the Rehovot research station. The moshav of Sde Warburg in the coastal plain was named after him, and the university garden of indigenous trees and plants on Mount Scopus was dedicated in his memory.