Soskin was born in 1873 in
Crimea, then part of the
Russian Empire. He was active in the Zionist movement while in Russia, and immigrated to
Ottoman Palestine in 1896, after studying
agronomy in
Germany. He was one of the founders of the settlement of
Be'er Tuvia (until then known as
Qastina, after the neighboring
Palestinian village of the same name), and worked on the planting of
eucalyptus to drain the swamps of
Hadera In 1898, Soskin accompanied
Theodor Herzl during his visit to Palestine, and subsequently assisted in research to examine the possibilities for agriculture in different regions in the country. In 1903, he participated in the
Sixth Zionist Congress, where he was elected to the Committee for the Study of Eretz Israel, along with
Otto Warburg and
Franz Oppenheimer. In connection with the works of the committee, he was part of a delegation to
El Arish, in the northern
Sinai, to investigate the area at the request of Herzl. Part of his agricultural research was conducted in collaboration with
Aaron Aaronsohn, with whom he became friends while in
Zichron Yaacov in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1918, he was appointed Director of Settlement on the
Jewish National Fund (the "JNF") and, following a tour of Europe, began to examine the implementation of an agricultural model. The model included intensive agriculture on small plots of land. He tried to implement this model in the
Binyamina district, and it saw success with the founding of
Nahariya in 1934. He also championed the use of
hydroponics - the growth of plants on water; in 1944, he proposed a plan to feed liberated Europe with hydroponic vegetables. He became a supporter of
Ze'ev Jabotinsky and of the
Revisionist movement. ==Awards and honours==