Barbash, Samuel

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BARBASH, SAMUEL

BARBASH, SAMUEL (c. 1850–1921), banker, leader of Ḥovevei Zion and of political Zionism in Russia. Barbash was born in Podolia. In the early 1880s he moved to Odessa, where he established a large bank, heading it until the Russian Revolution of 1917. He was one of the two guarantors to the Russian government for the legalization of the *Odessa Committee, the center of the Ḥovevei Zion movement, and served as its treasurer throughout the committee's existence. He was a member of the board of directors of the *Jewish Colonial Trust in its first years and its representative in Russia. He was active in many economic spheres affecting Zionism. Throughout his life he supported Hebrew cultural and literary projects.

bibliography:

M. Kleinmann (ed.), Enẓiklopedyah le-Ẓiyyonut, 1 (1947), 176–7; M.b.H. Ha-Kohen, Sefer Shemot (1938), 81–82.

[Getzel Kressel]