Leopold Kessler (1864–1944) was an engineer, newspaper publisher and Zionist. He was instrumental in building many of the institutions that supported the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state.
Early life
Leopold Kessler was born on 4 February 1864, into a family that had been settled for some 250 years in Gliwice, Upper Silesia: then part of Prussia, now part of Poland. He was the youngest of five children of Jacob Kessler and Johanna Feig. His maternal grandfather was Jacob Feig, one of the first Jews permitted to settle in nearby Tarnowitz.
Kessler studied at the Mining Academy in Freiberg and joined the German Student Corps' Teutonia chapter. However, he left because of anti-Semitism and because he did not agree with his fellow members' drinking and brawling. He spent a year at the Royal School of Mines in Berlin before returning to Freiberg to complete his studies. Afterward, he left Germany, because he no longer wanted to live in a country where Jews were treated as second-class citizens.
Kessler became a mining engineer in Rhodesia before going in 1896 to the Transvaal to become general manager of a mine.
Introduction to Zionism
Kessler wrote in his unfinished autobiography that when he read the booklet "The Jewish State" by Theodor Herzl, he felt he had discovered the solution to the problems that had troubled him in his student days. From then on, he declared himself to be a Zionist and became one of the earliest Zionist pioneers in South Africa. In 1899, he became president of the Transvaal Zionist Association and went to Basel, Switzerland, for the first time. He caused a stir at the Third Zionist Congress, where Jews from all over the world had rallied to Herzl’s call. Kessler was "greeted with enthusiastic applause" after presenting practical ideas for the Congress's Finance Commission, and was elected a member of the Greater Actions Committee.
In 1900, he made an exploratory trip to Palestine, where he stayed for several months, looking at the geographical, agricultural, and political conditions of the area. He prepared a detailed report for Herzl on the prospects of discovering natural resources such as coal and oil. He suggested publishing an Arabic newspaper and argued that Herzl should petition the Turks to remove the obstacles preventing Jewish immigration to Palestine. Kessler declared that "optimism, Jewish energy, endurance and intellect, combined with a steady immigration into the country, would lead to the factual recognition of the historical claims of the Jews to Palestine". Herzl, however, was of the opinion that mass migration should only occur once a charter had been agreed upon.
Kessler settled in London and attended the Fifth Zionist Congress in 1901. There, he was appointed secretary and became a member of the Colonization Commission. By this time, Herzl regarded Kessler as a friend and counsellor. When Herzl outlined his plan for obtaining a charter from the Turkish sultan, which required the financial and moral support of Cecil Rhodes of South Africa, Kessler offered to secure that support. However, Rhodes died soon afterward, in March 1902.
El Arish proposal
In October 1902, Herzl met with the British colonial secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, and England tentatively offered El Arish in the Sinai Peninsula for Jewish colonisation. This would lead, years later, to the Balfour Declaration. During the negotiations, Herzl had Kessler in mind to participate in the expedition. Oskar Marmorek, an Austro-Hungarian Zionist, appealed to Kessler: "I know of no-one who could equal you and your knowledge for our expedition. It is therefore your duty, as a loyal comrade, to make the almost impossible, possible."
Herzl received a document about El Arish from the British foreign secretary, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, and noted in his diary that it suggested Marmorek, an architect; Kessler, an engineer; and Otto Warburg, an agricultural expert, for the expedition. Petty-Fitzmaurice wrote that in Kessler, he saw a "coolness and calmness" he admired, and that "because of his composure, I like Kessler very well as the leader" of the expedition. Herzl instructed Kessler to return with a report on the feasibility of settling El Arish. With that report, he hoped to obtain the charter.