Category Archives: Religious Leaders

Spiritual and Religious Greats of the Jewish People

Jews of the Week: Mohilever, Pinsker, and Lilienblum

Hovevei Zion, The “Lovers of Zion”

Moses Lilienblum

Shmuel Mohilever (1824-1898) was born in what is today Belarus to a deeply religious family. He studied at the famed Volozhin Yeshiva and became a rabbi. Violent pogroms against Jews in Russia in 1881, followed by the antisemitic May Laws of 1882, convinced Rabbi Mohilever that Jews would never be safe in the diaspora and must return to their ancestral home. In 1882, he took a trip to Paris to meet with Edmond James de Rothschild and convinced him to fund Jewish settlements in the Holy Land. While chief rabbi of the town of Bialystok, Rabbi Mohilever would inspire Jews in his community to make aliyah. In 1884, he joined a group of leaders in Katowice (then in Prussia, today in Poland) to formally establish Hovevei Zion, the “Lovers of Zion”, into an organized movement. At the meeting, he was elected president while Leon Yehuda Leib Pinsker (1821-1891) was elected secretary. Pinsker was born to a secular Russian-Jewish family in what is today Poland. He was one of the first Jews to attend Odessa University to study law. However, restrictions on Jews becoming lawyers made him switch to medicine and Pinsker became a physician. At first, Pinsker believed Jews must assimilate into European society and that this would end antisemitism. He soon saw that this was not working at all, and concluded that antisemitism is a misnomer; the proper term should be “Judeophobia”, since fear and hatred of Jews is irrational, deep-seated, and essentially incurable. He started writing articles to convince Jews to move to their homeland, since everywhere else they would inevitably be hated. He worked closely with Moshe Leib Lilienblum (1843-1910) who, like Rabbi Mohilever, was born to a deeply religious Russian-Jewish family. Lilienblum was a noted Jewish scholar from a young age, and soon founded and headed a yeshiva in Vilnius. With time, however, he saw that poverty and persecution in exile was destroying his people. He became a committed Zionist, recognizing that the only solution for the Jewish people is to return to Israel and establish their own independent state. Lilienblum wrote a great deal of early Zionist literature. When Rabbi Mohilever distanced himself from Hovevei Zion because it was becoming too secular, Lilienblum took over as president. Hovevei Zion went on to convince countless Jews around the world to take up the Zionist call, and founded the cities of Rishon LeZion, Hadera, and Rehovot in Israel. Rabbi Mohilever, meanwhile, set the stage for the Mizrachi religious Zionist movement. He made sure that Jewish settlement in Israel conformed to Jewish law. The town and kibbutz of Gan Shmuel in Israel was founded in his honour in 1895.

Photo from the 1884 Katowice Conference, with Rabbi Mohilever and Leo Pinsker seated at centre.

Video: The Hidden History of Zionism

Words of the Week

To the living, the Jew is a corpse; to the native, a foreigner; to the homesteader, a vagrant; to the proprietary, a beggar; to the poor, an exploiter and a millionaire; to the patriot, a man without a country; for all, a hated rival.
– Leon Pinsker

Jew of the Week: Meir Bar-Ilan

A Religious Zionist Pioneer

Meir Berlin (1880-1949) was born in Volozhin, near modern-day Minsk, Belarus. He was the youngest son of the “Netziv”, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, one of the greatest rabbis of the generation and head of the illustrious Volozhin Yeshiva. Young Meir studied at his father’s yeshiva, as well as other prestigious academies like Brisk and Telshe. He received his rabbinic ordination at the age of 22, then headed to the University of Berlin for secular studies. It is there that he became a staunch Zionist, and in 1905 joined the Mizrachi movement of religious Zionists (founded by Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Reines). Berlin represented Mizrachi at the Seventh Zionist Congress where he voted against the Uganda Proposal (creating a Jewish state in Uganda instead of the Holy Land). In 1911, he founded a religious Zionist newspaper, HaIvri, which would go on to feature great writers and thinkers like S.Y. Agnon and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Berlin moved to New York a few years later to establish and develop the American branch of the Mizrachi movement. In a short period of time, it grew to over 100 chapters. He served as president of Yeshiva University between 1920 and 1922. The following year, he finally fulfilled his dream of making aliyah and settled in Jerusalem. As did many others, Berlin would later Hebraize his last name to “Bar-Ilan”. Meanwhile, he founded a new newspaper, HaTzofeh, and started work on the Talmudical Encyclopedia (which would eventually be a massive 42-volume series). Bar-Ilan served on the boards of Mizrachi Bank and the Jewish National Fund. When the British limited Jewish immigration to the Holy Land, Bar-Ilan became their vocal opponent and began a campaign of peaceful protest and civil disobedience. In 1943, he went on a trip around the world to build support for establishing a Jewish state and met with numerous political leaders. He also criticized the American government for staying silent and doing little about the atrocities happening in Europe, and campaigned for more assistance to Jewish refugees. When the State of Israel was finally born, Rabbi Bar-Ilan presided over a committee to discuss how Jewish law can continue to be observed properly in the new country. He also championed the establishment of a university that would combine rigorous religious education with advanced secular studies and professional training. Though he did not live to see it, such a university did open its doors in Tel-Aviv in 1955, and was named after him: Bar-Ilan University. Today, Bar-Ilan University is Israel’s second-largest educational facility, with over 20,000 students. Moshav Beit Meir and the Meir Hills in Israel are named after Rabbi Bar-Ilan, too, along with numerous other streets, neighbourhoods, and schools.

Happy Jerusalem Day!

Bar-Ilan: Forgotten Pioneer of Jewish Activism

The Zohar Prophecy of the Six-Day War

Words of the Week

If horses were being slaughtered as are the Jews of Poland, there would by now be a loud demand for organized action against such cruelty to animals. Somehow, when it concerns Jews, everybody remains silent, including the intellectuals and humanitarians of free and enlightened America.
– Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan

Jew of the Week: Abraham Zacuto

The Rabbi Who Saved Columbus

A page from Zacuto’s astronomical tables

Avraham ben Shmuel Zacut “Zacuto” (1452-1515) was born in Salamanca, in what is today Spain, to a religious Sephardic Jewish family. He studied both Jewish law and astronomy, becoming the rabbi of Salamanca and simultaneously an astronomy teacher. He invented a new type of astrolabe and a novel method for determining latitude at sea, which would become vital to navigators and sailors. In 1478, he published HaChibur haGadol, “The Great Book”, with detailed and easy-to-use astronomical tables. It was translated to Spanish in 1481, and Latin shortly after. This made Rabbi Zacuto world-famous and when the Jews of Spain were banished in 1492, he was immediately hired by King John II of Portugal to serve as his royal astronomer. Zacuto argued that a sea route to India was possible, and this convinced John II to finance Vasco da Gama’s famous voyage to discover the route to India, opening European sea trade with the Far East. Da Gama used Zacuto’s astrolabe and tables, and Zacuto personally trained and taught the sailors. Zacuto had also argued, based on the Zohar—the “textbook” of Jewish mysticism, dating back to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the 2nd century CE—that the Earth must be spherical, and it would be possible to journey west, not east. This information was instrumental in convincing Christopher Columbus to launch his own voyage. In fact, Columbus relied heavily on Zacuto’s astrolabe and astronomical charts. In a well-known story from his third voyage, Columbus was marooned on a Caribbean island and facing both hostile natives and his own rebellious sailors. The natives refused to provide food and resources to Columbus, so he came up with a ruse. Consulting Zacuto’s tables, Columbus saw that a lunar eclipse was imminent. He told the native chief that if he will not provide resources to the sailors, the moon would go dark and God would punish them! The eclipse came and the natives panicked, giving Columbus’ men all that they needed to survive. Back in Europe, the next king of Portugal, Manuel I, followed the Spanish in expelling his Jewish subjects. Zacuto was offered to stay in Portugal if only he converted to Christianity, even just nominally. Of course, he refused, and left with his people. He first settled in Tunis, where he wrote his monumental Sefer Yuhasin, a highly-acclaimed work describing the entire history of the Jewish people. He later fulfilled his dream of making it to the Holy Land and lived his last years in Jerusalem. Rabbi Zacuto is considered one of history’s greatest and most consequential astronomers. The Zagut Crater on the moon is named after him.

Happy Lag b’Omer!

The Hidden History of Lag b’Omer

Did the Talmud Predict Today’s Crisis in Israel?

Words of the Week

The blessing in life is when you find the torture you are comfortable with. That’s marriage, it’s kids, it’s work, it’s exercise. Find the torture you’re comfortable with and you’ll do well. You’ve mastered that, you’ve mastered life.
– Jerry Seinfeld