Walter Steinitz

Walter Steinitz (Hebrew: ולטר שטייניץ)‎ (12 February 1882 – 14 December 1963) was a German-born Israeli cardiologist, zoologist, and fisheries research pioneer in Israel.

[2] In recognition of his first and leading research of the marine fauna of the Eastern Mediterranean Basin,[3][4] the Breslau University granted him a position as Privatdozent and lecturer in zoology.

He joined a group of Jewish German-born settlers who together founded in 1933 Ramot HaShavim, a village organized as an agricultural commune.

He was a highly educated person, a polymath with wide interests in the fields of life sciences, geology, philosophy and music.

Until his death in 1963, he made his living in Ramot HaShavim from a chicken farm, where he attempted to improve egg production by poultry breeding.

He participated the Zionist Congresses in Basel in 1903 and in London (1920);[6][7] attended the inauguration ceremony of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1925; chose the coast of Palestine and the eastern Mediterranean Sea as the zoogeographic research area he would study while still being affiliated to the Breslau University;[3][4] and formulated plans for the establishment of a marine research station in Palestine nearly fifteen years prior his decision to move and live in that country.

[3][4] His investigations were pioneering in two scientific respects: First, he discovered new marine organisms in the region, and second, he found fishes of Indo-Pacific origin along the coast of Palestine.

[12] An exchange of letters on the topic with Prof. Albert Einstein during the period 1919-1937 represent Steinitz’s persistent efforts to raise funds and support for the endeavor.

[14] He received support from the biochemist and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, and from Tel Aviv’s mayor Israel Rokach.

Among the group’s founders were the mayor of Tel Aviv, Israel Rokach; Dr. Felix Danziger; Prof. Alfred Klopstock and other scholars.