Sam Zemurray

Sam Zemurray donated $ 500,000 to the Jewish Agency

Sam Zemurray hundreds of dollars for building the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

In 1910, Zemurray acquired Land in Honduras, which was well suited for banana cultivation. He invested in the infrastructure for the construction of banana plantations. This also included the construction of railway lines, bridges and jetty in order to be able to transport and load the fruits to the port.

In 1933, Zemurray convinced the majority of shareholders to make him director of the United Fruit Company. He reorganized the company, decentralized the decision -making process, and the company became profitable again. In 1951 Zemurray Edward Bernays commissioned an advertising campaign against Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. In 1951 he retired as President of the UFCO.

Zemurray was in possession of a fleet of cargo ships. Since some of them were equipped with good ventilation systems, they could easily be converted into passenger ships. Sam Zemuray's Russian-Jewish roots were an excellent basis for the connections that the Aliyah Bet activists were taking with the Jewish "banana king".

The Zionist activities of Zemurray were not limited to Aliyah Bet. One of the groundbreaking events in which he played a key role was the vote that took place on November 29, 1947 in the United Nations: his efforts behind the scenes contributed to determining the result. At Weizmann's request, Zemurray used his far -reaching connections in Latin America and exerted all his influence to convince the governments there to vote for the division plan for Palestine.

According to Weizmann, Zemurray sat down in the evening, reached the phone and "went to work". He asked every head of government in Central America two questions: "How do you want to vote on the division?" And "Can your voting behavior be changed?"

After calling, Zemurray to Weizmann said that every voice from Mexico to Colombia was for sale, but the price was very high.

When the voices were actually counted, all Central American countries had switched their voices to "yes" - with the exception of Honduras, which was due to the pressure of the Arab community of voice. Zemurray summarized the coordination with the words: "You can't get anything without fighting for it."

The Cuyamel Fruit Company was taken over by the Hubbard-Zermurry Company in 1904, which was founded in 1902 by Samuel Zemurray and his partner Ashbell Hubbard.