Life peer Leslie Turnberg on the remarkable Russian revolutionary turned engineering pioneer and leader of the Jewish population of Palestine.

Pinchas Rutenberg electrified Palestine in more ways than one.

A Russian revolutionary who plotted the murder of Lenin and Trotsky, he set up a hydro-electric plant on the Jordan River, blustering past determined opposition, before founding Palestine Airways. As leader of the Jewish population of Palestine he was heavily involved in negotiations with the British Government and its Mandatory administration, endeavouring to forge a peace deal with Arab leaders. Requests in his own will resulted in a paucity of literature about him in English but now medical luminary and life peer Leslie Turnberg, author of Mandate: Britain’s Palestinian Burden, rectifies this with his biography of a remarkable figure.

Buy a copy of An Unreasonable Man by Leslie Turnberg.

This event will last approximately 1 hour, without an interval. 

About the speakers:

As an academic physician and past president of the Royal College of Physicians, Leslie Turnberg has now turned his attention to the history of the Middle East. As a member of the House of Lords he speaks on health matters and the Middle East. He has published two books on the history of Israel. He lives in London.

Richard Bolchover studied Jewish History and Hebrew Literature at University College London, St. Antony’s College Oxford and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he was a Rotary International Foundation Scholar studying at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry. His British Jewry and the Holocaust is published in hardback by C.U.P. and in expanded paperback form by the Littman Library. He has worked in the City for 35 years, co-founding two successful business, and is Vice Chair of the Anglo-Israel Association.