Rassco (Rural and Suburban Settlement Company) is an Israeli construction and development company. [1] [2] [3] It was established in Mandate Palestine 1934 at the initiative of the Jewish Agency. [4] [5] [6]
Rassco (Rural and Suburban Settlement Company) is an Israeli construction and development company. [1] [2] [3] It was established in Mandate Palestine 1934 at the initiative of the Jewish Agency. [4] [5] [6]
The company's initial goals were the establishment of agricultural settlements and industrial enterprises to assist in the absorption of German Jewish immigrants. [7] Rassco was intended to be the central instrument for middle-class settlement and housing in Palestine. [8] [9]
The founders were Yeshayahu Foerder, Georg Landauer, Ludwig Pinner, Arthur Ruppin and David Senator. [10] Chaim Weizmann, later Israel's first president, was the first chairman of the board.
The company built residential neighborhoods all over Israel, including the Rassco neighborhood in Jerusalem that bears its name.
In the 1950s, Rassco was listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. In the 1960s, Rassco built large-scale housing projects in Iran. [4] In 1970, the Jewish Agency owned over 99 percent of the company shares and elected the entire board of directors. [10]
Other enterprises run by Rassco include a metal factory, a prefabricated building company, a hotel and a health resort. [10]
Tel Aviv-Yafo, often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a population of 460,613, it is the economic and technological center of the country. If East Jerusalem is considered part of Israel, Tel Aviv is the country's second most populous city after Jerusalem; if not, Tel Aviv is the most populous city ahead of West Jerusalem.
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Arieh Sharon was an Israeli architect and winner of the Israel Prize for Architecture in 1962. Sharon was a critical contributor to the early architecture in Israel and the leader of the first master plan of the young state, reporting to then Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion. Sharon studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau under Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer and on his return to Israel in 1931, started building in the International Style, better known locally as the Bauhaus style of Tel Aviv. Sharon built private houses, cinemas and in 1937 his first hospital, a field in which he specialized in his later career, planning and constructing many of the country's largest medical centers.
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