Simcha Blass Simcha Blass Simcha Blass (November 27, 1897 – July 18, 1982; ) was a Polish-Israeli engineer and inventor who developed the drip irrigation system with his son Yeshayahu. Simcha Blass was born in Warsaw, Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire, to an Orthodox Jewish family. He was active in the Jewish self-defense units organized in Warsaw to defend Jews during the end of World War I. His engineering studies in Warsaw were interrupted by the Polish-Soviet War and completed after that war. During the war, he was recruited to the Polish Army, there he invented for the
Simcha Zissel Ziv to accompany him, out of concern that the move to Moscow might have a negative effect on Wissotzky’s spirituality. Simcha Zissel then moved to Moscow, where he lived for two years. Following his time in Moscow, Simcha Zissel moved to St. Petersburg, then the largest city in Czarist Russia. After spending almost a year there, the communal leaders brought Simcha Zissel a signed document appointing him as their Rabbi. He was unwilling to accept the position, however, and proposed that his friend from the yeshiva in Kovno – Rabbi Yitzchak Blazer – be appointed to the position. Seeking to combat