Zdenka Samish

Zdenka (Devorah) Kohn was born in Prague to Otto and Vilma Kohn. Active in the Zionist youth movement, she immigrated to Palestine in 1924. In 1926 she and her husband, Moshe Rudolf Samish, also a Czech native, went to California to complete their degrees at UC Davis and UC Berkeley. She received her B.S. in 1931 at UC Davis and her M.A. in household science in 1933 at UC Berkeley; her masters thesis was on "The Effect of Excess Viosterol and of Parathyroid Extract upon the Tissues of Rats".

In 1934 the couple returned to Palestine and she began working as a chemist at a fruit canning factory in Rehovot. In 1937 she joined the experimental research station in that city, and in 1946 was named director of the laboratory for canned fruits and vegetables. In 1949 she became an instructor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot on the subject of food technology. After 1951 she became director of food technology at the Agricultural Research Station in Rehovot.

In 1946 Samish received a grant from the Mandatory government to develop methods for producing juices and concentrates from citrus fruits. In 1947 she received a U.S. patent for the manufacture of dried citrus fruit paste (fruit leather).

Other research projects included a joint U.S.-Israeli study of microorganisms found in fruit and vegetable pulp; techniques for squeezing olives and producing olive oil; tomato paste production; industrial processing of potatoes and peaches; and freezing and dehydrating vegetables. Her research on "bloaters" – cucumbers that float to the surface instead of staying in the brine during the pickling process – was reported in the U.S. publications Science News and Organic Gardening and Farming.

Samish served as a consultant on planning committees for food production and helped draw up standards for food products in institutions in Israel and abroad. She also introduced the subject of canning to agricultural schools in Israel.

Although she retired in 1969, she continued her research at the Volcani Center for several more years. She was appointed as an official representative of the Ministry of Agriculture's Fruit Council in 1979.

In 1992 she was honored as a Worthy Agricultural Researcher (Hebrew: יקיר המחקר החקלאי‎) for being one of the first agricultural researchers in pre-state Israel. In 1996 she was honored as a Worthy Citizen of the City of Rehovot.

She and her husband, Moshe Rudolf Samish, PhD (1904–1975), had two sons. He worked in the experimental research station in Rehovot in the area of plantations, as director of the Division of Pomology and Viticulture at the Agricultural Research Station (Volcani Center), and as a professor in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot.

Zdenka Samish died on March 8, 2008, less than a week shy of her 104th birthday, and was buried beside her husband in the Rehovot Old Cemetery.