Jacobus Henricus Kann was married to Adriana Anna Polak Daniels. He ran a well-established bank in The Hague.
Jacobus Henricus Kann was enthralled with Herzl's ideas. In 1897 Kann attended the first Zionist congress in Basle. He figured prominently in the world Zionist organization, serving on the international executive board and with the Jewish Colonial Trust established in 1898 as the bank of the Zionist world organization.
In 1924 the Dutch government opened a consulate in Jerusalem, where Kann was appointed consul. After four years he resigned because of his wife's poor health.
When the city of Tel Aviv was founded in 1908, Kann arranged a complicated transaction necessary to comply with Ottoman law to finance the land purchase and the construction of the first sixty homes.
M.H. Gans, Memorboek. Platenatlas van het leven der joden in Nederland van de middeleeuwen tot 1940 (6e bijgewerkte druk; Baarn 1988) 611-612
Biography