ROSENBLATT, BERNARD ABRAHAM

ROSENBLATT, BERNARD ABRAHAM (1886–1969), U.S. lawyer and Zionist. Rosenblatt, who was born in Gorodok, Galicia, was taken to the U.S. in 1892. Rosenblatt, as a Columbia University student, established in 1905 the first Zionist student organization, the Columbia University Zionist Organization, and was a founder of the Collegiate Zionist League at the end of 1906. From 1911, he served as the secretary of the American Zionist Federation. In 1916 he was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress and in 1921 he was appointed a New York City magistrate. As founder and first president of the American Zion Commonwealth (1915), a land development firm dedicated to facilitating Jewish settlement in Palestine, he supervised the land acquisition for, and subsequent establishment of, the towns of Herzliyyah, Afulah, Balfouria, and settlement in the Haifa Bay region. In his capacity as the first U.S. delegate to be appointed to the World Zionist Executive (1921), he was responsible for floating the first issue of Palestinian bonds in the U.S., setting the pattern for subsequent Israel bonds sales.

He was chairman of the board of Tiberias Hot Springs, Ltd. (1935–40), president of both the Jewish National Fund (1923–37) and the Keren Hayesod of America (1941–46), and vice president of the Zionist Organization of America (1927–48). Rosenblatt wrote: Two Generations of Zionism (1967), his autobiography; Social Zionism (1919); Federated Palestine and the Jewish Commonwealth (1941); and The American Bridge to the Israel Commonwealth (1959).

bibliography:

A. Friesel, Ha-Tenu'ah ha-Ẓiyyonit be-Arẓot ha-Berit ba-Shanim 1897–1914 (1970), 155–7 and index; S.S. Wise, Challenging Years (1949).