GRUNBERG (Grinberg), ABRAHAM

GRUNBERG (Grinberg), ABRAHAM (1841–1906), hibbat zion leader. Born in Kishinev, Grunberg became a merchant and estate owner and one of the first wealthy Jews to join the Ḥibbat Zion movement. He lent his support to L. Pinsker in Odessa. In 1889, at the Ḥovevei Zion Conference at Vilna, he was elected to the committee of trustees (the other members of which were S. Mohilever and S.J. Fuenn ), which replaced Pinsker at the head of the movement. In 1890 he helped obtain from the Czarist authorities the authorization for the Society for the Support of Jewish Agriculturists and Artisans in Syria and Palestine (the official name of the Odessa Committee of Ḥovevei Zion), and upon Pinsker's death (1892) he was elected president of the society, a post which he retained until a few months before his death. Grunberg also headed a delegation that discussed with baron rothschild in Paris the methods of agricultural settlement in Ereẓ Israel (1901). He frequently served as a Jewish representative before the Russian authorities. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Druyanow (ed.), Ketavim le-Toledot Ḥibbat-Ẓiyyon ve-Yishuv Ereẓ-Yisrael, 2 (1925), index; 3 (1932), index. (Yehuda Slutsky)