Judaism and Human Geography 9781644695777

Citation preview

Judaism

and Human Geography

Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah Series Editor Dov Schwartz (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan) Editorial Board Ada Rapoport Albert (University College, London) Gad Freudenthal (CNRS, Paris) Gideon Freudenthal (Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv) Moshe Idel (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) Raphael Jospe (Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan) Ephraim Kanarfogel (Yeshiva University, New York) Menachem Kellner (Haifa University, Haifa) Daniel Lasker (Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva)

Judaism

and Human Geography YO S S I K ATZ

BOSTON 2021

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kats, Yosef, 1953- author. Title: Judaism and human geography / Yossi Katz. Description: Brookline, MA : Academic Studies Press, 2021. | Series: Emunot: Jewish philosophy and Kabbalah | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020058144 (print) | LCCN 2020058145 (ebook) | ISBN 9781644695760 (hardback) | ISBN 9781644695777 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781644695784 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Human geography--Religious aspects--Judaism. | Jewish philosophy. | Judaism--Influence. Classification: LCC BM538.H86 K38 2021 (print) | LCC BM538.H86 (ebook) | DDC 296.3/8--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058144 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058145 Copyright © 2021 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved. ISBN 9781644695760 (hardback) ISBN 9781644695777 (adobe pdf) ISBN 9781644695784 (epub) Book design by Lapiz Digital Services Cover design by Ivan Grave On the cover: Hannukah Menorah on the background of Kiryat Shmuel, established in the 1930s as a religious neighborhood in Haifa, 1960 Photo: David Harris, KKL-JNF Photo Archive Published by Academic Studies Press. 1577 Beacon Street Brookline, MA 02446, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

Contents

Introduction7 1. Th  e Implementation of Jewish Religious Law in the Building of Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel 

11

2. Environmental Concerns in the Bylaws of Jerusalem’s First Neighborhoods

31

3. Th  e Agricultural Settlement Attempt in Kfar Uriya: Religious Zionist Settlement before the First World War

40

4. The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

54

5. H  aPoel HaMizrachi Movement and Urban Religious Settlement in the Land of Israel

82

6. Incorporating Jewish Law in Israel’s Land Law, 1969

107

7. Th  e Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

146

8. “ Jewish Toronto”: Street Names, Signs, and Symbols in the North of Metropolitan Toronto

172

9. The Failure of Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Western Canada

186

Bibliography194 Index204

Introduction

Judaism is a religion that imposes a very long list of commandments on its adherents. It is not enough to believe in one God. Believers must accept religious guidelines that accompany them from the moment they are born until they die. Fathers must circumcise their sons when they are only eight days old, and are responsible for the child’s education. Believers must eat kosher food and marry only Jewish mates or converts. They must fast several times a year and keep the Sabbath by refraining from work, travel, operating machines, and more. They are commanded to pray three times a day, recite blessings over their food, and observe countless precepts. Some of these precepts come directly from the Torah. Others are from the Mishnah, the Talmud, the rulings of illustrious Jewish legal scholars, among them Maimonides (1135–1204) and Joseph Caro (1488–1575), author of the Shulchan Arukh (the Code of Jewish Law), and rabbinic responsa composed over hundreds of years and still being written today. There are also customs that emerged in certain Jewish communities around the world, but not in others. A Jew is obligated to follow the customs of his community or those of his parents. Sometimes there are discrepancies between the customs of one community and another. In any case, Judaism is a religion that requires certain behaviors from its adherents. Like other religions, Judaism has also developed unique symbols that have become virtually exclusive to it, such as the Star of David and the seven-branched menorah. These two symbols appear, for example, on tombstones in Jewish cemeteries. Certain groups in Judaism have their own symbols. In this book I argue—and bring proof—that Judaism impacts human geography in not insignificant ways. Human geography is a discipline that explores the processes by which human design shapes the environment, and man and space interact. Thus, factors such as patterns in human settlement,

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Introduction

urban construction and development, or transportation systems constitute the very core of this discipline. Religion impacts space and influences human geography. Churches and houses of worship are perhaps the chief example. Judaism, too, as a religion that requires tangible deeds from its adherents, has left an imprint on the landscape over the generations, most notably in the location and design of synagogues. Going back to the days of the Temple, it was necessary to build six cities of refuge in the Land of Israel to enable persons accused of accidental manslaughter to escape the vengeance of the victim’s relatives. Yet another example of Judaism’s imprint on human geography is shemitah, a set of laws requiring fields to be left fallow for an entire year every seven years, bringing all agricultural work in the Land of Israel to a halt. Judaism has thus created a unique “Jewish geography.” Nevertheless, few geographers to date have written about Jewish human geography.1 This book is an attempt to partly fill that gap, and even more so, to point out other directions of research open to geographers in the context of Judaism and other religions. This book is based on articles that were published throughout the years and whose common denominator is the ties between Judaism and human geography. The articles have been updated and reedited as required for their publication in this volume. My interest in the subject of religion and its impact on settlement issues started already during my advanced studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem during the late 1970s and the 1980s. Being a Jewish Orthodox geographer has probably contributed to finding interest in this field and to the decision to explore it in my research work. The book contains nine chapters. Chapter 1 discusses religious precepts and their geographical implications for Jewish urban and agricultural settlement in Palestine in the late Ottoman era. Chapter 2 deals with environmental aspects in the bylaws of the first neighborhoods that were built outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Chapter 3 explores the establishment of a Jewish colony based on national-religious ideology before the First World War. Chapter 4 analyzes the settlement principles of the Religious Kibbutz Movement and its efforts from the British Mandate onwards to establish kibbutzim with a religious lifestyle. Chapter 5 is about 1 See, for example, the article collection, Harold Brodsky, ed., Land and Community: Geography in Jewish Studies (Bethesda, MD: University of Maryland Press, 1997).

Introduction

Hapoel HaMizrachi’s establishment of religious neighborhoods in Israeli cities as a strategy for enhancing its political standing. Chapter 6 looks at the bid to incorporate principles of Jewish religious law in the State of Israel’s Land Law, 1969. Chapter 7 focuses on the symbols of one of the most active groups in the religious Jewish world—the Chabad movement—whose center in New York has become an object of reverence and a “substitute” for no less than the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Chapter 8 shows how Jewish religious symbols impacted on the landscape in North Toronto, with its very visible Jewish presence. Chapter 9 describes the Jewish agricultural settlement attempt in Western Canada and the reasons for its failure. I would like to thank Professor Dov Schwartz, the editor of the series “Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah,” who encouraged me to present my studies in this book. The Zerah Warheftig Institute for the Research of Religious Zionism, headed by Professor Schwartz, has contributed to the publishing of the book and I am thankful for that. I have also been assisted by the Schnitzer Foundation for Research on Israeli Economy and Society, Bar-Ilan University, and by the Chair for the Study of the History and Activities of the Jewish National Fund at Bar-Ilan University, and I appreciate their support. This book could not have been published without the editing work undertaken by Henia Columbus, and I am grateful to her. I thank also Inbal Samet for editing the language of two translated chapters. Special thanks are due to the staff of the Academic Studies Press: Alessandra Anzani, Editorial Director of the Academic Studies Press, and to the other workers of the Press for their efforts. Last but not least, I am grateful to my wife Ruthie, who for the last forty years has been assisting me with my research work. * * * The list of the original papers and the journals and books in which they first appeared is as follows: “The Jewish Religion and Spatial and Communal Organization: The Implementation of Jewish Religious Law in the Building of Urban Neighborhoods and Jewish Agricultural Settlements in Palestine at the Close of the Nineteenth Century,” in Sacred Places and Profane Spaces: Essays in the Geographics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Jamie Scott and Paul Simpson-Housley (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), 3–19.

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Introduction

“Aspects of Environment in the Bylaws of Jerusalem’s First Neighborhoods” [Hebrew], Al Atar 8–9 (2001): 37–44. “The Attempted Settlement at Kfar Uria on the Eve of World War I” [Hebrew], Zion 52, no. 1 (1987): 45–55. “The Religious Kibbutz Movement and its Credo, 1935–48,” Middle Eastern Studies 31, no. 2 (1995): 253–280. “HaPoel HaMizrachi and Urban Religious Settlement: Vision and Practice in the Yishuv Period and after the Establishment of the State of Israel,” in Between Tradition and Innovation: Studies in Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel: Yoshua Kaniel—In Memoriam [Hebrew], ed. Eliezer Don Yehiya (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2005), 177–197. “Incorporating Jewish Law in the Legislation Process of Israel’s Land Law, 1969” [Hebrew], Karka 53 (2001): 91–134. “Sanctification of a House and Its Number: The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York” [Hebrew], Daat 78 (2005): 107–127. “‘Jewish Toronto’: Its Expression in Street Names, Symbols and Signs in  the North of the Metropolis” [Hebrew], Horizons in Geography 83 (2013): 40–52. “The Failure of Jewish Settlement in Western Canada,” in Land and Community: Geography in Jewish Studies, ed. Harold Brodsky (Bethesda, MD: University of Maryland Press, 1997), 389–397.

Chapter 1

The Implementation of Jewish Religious Law in the Building of Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

Jewish religion has expressed itself spatially in manifold and varied spheres. This can be identified already through the perusal of the Torah, which reveals a number of commandments with a distinctly spatial aspect. For example, we encounter the commandments to conquer the Land of Israel and settle it with the Jewish people,1 to erect the Temple at the site of God’s choosing,2 and to visit it at least three times a year,3 as well as religious duties related to agricultural labor in the Land of Israel, such as the prohibition on working the land during the sabbatical year (the commandment of shemitah).4 The Jewish halakhic (religious-legal) literature, commencing with the Mishnah and continuing with the Talmud, the decisions of Maimonides, the Shulchan Arukh and the responsa literature, covers many topics with spatial aspects. This derives from the fact that halakhic literature addresses all spheres of life, since the Jewish religion, governed by Halakha, demands from its believers not only faith but concrete actions, including many with a spatial expression. Thus, the Halakha addresses the subject of the boundaries of the Land of Israel.5 1 2 3 4 5

See, for example, Numbers 33:50–55. See, for example, Exodus 24:8. Exodus 23:17. See, for example, Leviticus 25:1–7. See Chaim Bar Droma, These are the Boundaries of the Land [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Beer and Mossad HaRav Kook, 1958), who deals extensively with the subject.

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Other commandments that have a distinct geographic significance are those connected with Sabbath observance such as the prohibition on journeying or riding on the Sabbath or walking over a thousand meters outside a settled region in any direction.6 The Halakha also defines what a city and a village are, for there are laws that specifically apply either to a city or to a village.7 The Halakha determines the distances governing land usage if such usage occasions a disturbance to city residents (for example, tanneries and cemeteries) and deals with relations between neighbors, property rights, and so on.8 One can justifiably contend that an Orthodox Jewish community that conducts its life according to the Halakha will adhere, even in the modern era, to the religious commands with a spatial import. Such a community will, of course, take account of the differences over time as decreed by the rabbinical authorities. Relying on this premise, this research will attempt to examine how Jewish Law influenced the contours of the spatial and organizational structure of the first Jewish neighborhoods founded during the 1860s and 1870s outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Similarly, it will explore the influence of Jewish Law upon the shaping of the spatial and organizational structure of the Jewish agricultural settlements that were also established during this period. The Jewish communities engaged in the establishment of these neighborhoods and settlements were homogeneously Orthodox in the full sense of the word.9 It was therefore almost plausible that on all relevant matters concerning the construction of neighborhoods and settlements and their organization there would be proper regard for the Halakha in those instances where it could be applied.

The historical background of the establishment of the neighborhoods and settlements During the first half of the nineteenth century, the size of the Jewish population in the Old City of Jerusalem increased tremendously due Yehoshua Neuwirth, Shemirath Shabbath: A Guide to the Practical Observance of Shabbath [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Beit Midrash Halacha Moriah, 1979), especially 189, 339, 373, 377. 7 Mishnah, Megillah 1:1–3. 8 Mishnah, Bava Batra 2:1–5, 7–12. 9 Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, “Legislative and Cultural Factors in the Development of Jerusalem, 1800–1914,” in Geography in Israel: A Collection of Papers Offered to the 23rd International Geographical Congress, USSR, July–August 1976, ed. David H. K. Amiran and Yehoshua Ben-Arieh (Jerusalem: Israel National Committee, International Geographical Union, 1976), 90–105. 6

Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

to a surge of immigration to Palestine from Eastern Europe. Steamships began at that time to call on the Mediterranean ports, enabling Jews in Eastern European Orthodox centers to fulfill their dream and the religious commandment to immigrate to the Land of Israel with greater facility. The vast majority of the immigrants settled in Jerusalem with its concentration of Jewish holy places, including the centerpiece, the Western Wall—the sole remnant of the Second Temple. A second source of the increased Jewish population was provided by the migration of Jews from the cities of Safed and Tiberias in the Galilee, following the devastating earthquake that struck the Galilee in 1837. In 1860 the Jewish population of Jerusalem reached about 8,000 out of a total population of 18,000, in comparison with the year 1800, in which Jews comprised only 2,000 of a population of 8,750. Almost its entirety was concentrated in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, whose total area did not exceed 850 dunams (1 dunam = 0.25 acre). The growth in population led to a huge increase in the population density of the Jewish Quarter, with all the repercussions of overcrowding, such as deficient sanitary conditions and diseases. The hope of alleviating these conditions was one of the primary motivations that fueled the aspirations of the Jewish population to build new neighborhoods outside the Old City walls, and move into an area that, prior to the mid-nineteenth century, was desolate. Construction of these neighborhoods began in the 1860s and continued in the 1870s and they constituted the nucleus of Jerusalem outside the Old City walls. The primary initiative for the building came, as stated, from the residents of Jerusalem. Nonetheless, there were also initiatives from Jewish philanthropic bodies abroad who wished to assist the Jewish community in Jerusalem. The neighborhood population was a hundred percent Jewish; some neighborhoods were mixed in that they encompassed different Jewish communities while others were confined to specific communities. A few were even organized according to the population of the country of origin. What they all had in common, at least until the 1890s, was that their population was homogeneously Orthodox in every sense.10

10 The growth of the Jewish community within the city walls, the factors leading to the establishment of the Jewish neighborhoods outside the walls, and the process of their development are summarized extensively in Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, A City Reflected in Its Times, vol. 1: Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century: The Old City [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1984); and idem, A City Reflected in Its Times, vol. 2: New Jerusalem— the Beginnings [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1986).

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The first Jewish agricultural settlements were established at the end of the 1870s and the beginning of the 1880s. Some were started by Ashkenazi Jews from Jerusalem and Safed, with a view toward expanding the Jewish sources of income and subsistence and providing substance for the ideological aspiration for productivization. Hitherto, Jews in Ashkenazi communities in Jerusalem and the Galilee subsisted on contributions from their brethren who had remained abroad and engaged for most of the day in Torah study. For the Jewish community in Palestine this created dependency on Jews residing abroad, which influenced all spheres of life. During the 1870s, the Jewish community was expected to manage its own affairs without outside interference and to concern itself with, among other things, earning its own way. This was the background of the decision of the Jerusalem and Galilee Jewry to turn toward agricultural work. But there was an additional reason for the vocational penchant of Jerusalem’s Jews for agricultural work and it was connected directly with our topic. They were inspired by the religious aspiration of fulfilling the commandments connected with the Land of Israel. These could be observed and religious completion was obtainable only if one worked the soil of the Land. Among other things, these commandments included the law obligating a person to leave part of the crop in the field for the poor, and another requiring to set aside or destroy a percentage of the crop before it would be permissible to eat the remainder (at the time of the Temple, this quantity was given over to the Priests, the Levites and the poor). Similarly, another commandment proclaimed that one had to abstain from working the land one year out of seven.11 Another segment of Jewish agricultural settlement was established by Zionist immigrants who began arriving in the country at the start of the 1880s. The backdrop of their arrival was the pogroms against the Eastern European Jews and the concomitant awakening of national Zionism. These immigrants, who were also strictly Orthodox, aspired to establish agricultural settlements and engage in farming, thus fulfilling the Zionist 11 Mordechai Eliav, The Land of Israel and Its Settlement in the Nineteenth Century, 1777–1917 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Keter, 1978), 92–139, 167–178; Haim Yair Peles, “The Attitude of the ‘Old Yishuv’ to Agricultural Settlement in Eretz-Israel in Nineteenth Century” [Hebrew], Zion 41, nos. 3–4 (1976): 148–162; Israel Bartal, “Settlement Plans from the Second Voyage of Montefiore to the Land of Israel (1839)” [Hebrew], Shalem 2 (1976): 231–296; Yehoshua Kaniel, “The Controversy between Petach Tiqva and Rishon LeZion concerning Primacy of Settlement and Its Historical Significance” [Hebrew], Cathedra 9 (1978): 42–45.

Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

ideology of returning to the Land and changing the Jewish occupational structure from trade and finance to agriculture. Settlements were established near the city of Jaffa, south of Haifa and in the Upper Galilee. In the period under discussion, each settlement (moshavah, plural: moshavot) comprised some dozens of families and was conducted by an elected moshavah committee that also dealt with public matters. The settlements received extensive aid from Baron Rothschild, who enlisted himself to assist them after they had fallen into a severe economic crisis shortly following their establishment—a crisis that jeopardized their very existence. Toward the end of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, a non-religious population began to penetrate the settlements, which, of course, influenced the lifestyle and character of the settlements.12

Jewish Law and the construction of the Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem Jewish Law found expression in a number of spheres both in the construction and the organization of the neighborhood. First, there were the public facilities designed to service communal requirements prescribed by Jewish Law: a synagogue and a ritual bath. The ritual bath primarily served women who had completed their menstrual cycle. According to Jewish Law, every married woman must immerse herself in the ritual bath a week after the conclusion of her menstrual cycle; otherwise, she cannot have sexual relations with her husband.13 Additionally, the ritual bath served as a place of immersion for men. Although, according to Jewish Law, since the destruction of the Temple men are not obligated to immerse themselves in the bath, Jewish custom calls for immersing and purifying oneself at least before Sabbaths and festivals. Many religious Jews were accustomed to do this every day. Jewish Law was embodied not only in the physical construction of the building requisite for the provision of these neighborhood religious functions. It found expression even in building details such as the location 12 Kaniel, “The Controversy between Petach Tiqva and Rishon LeZion”; Ran Aaronsohn, “Stages in the Development of the Settlements of the First Aliyah,” in The First Aliyah [Hebrew], vol. 1, ed. Mordechai Eliav (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Ministry of Defense, 1981), 25–84. 13 Shulchan Arukh (Code of Jewish Law), Yoreh Deah 183–201.

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of the houses and their plans and environmental issues. For example, the setting of a synagogue in a neighborhood was determined by the Jewish law that stipulates that “one may build a synagogue only at the summit of a city.”14 The concept “summit of a city” is not clearly defined in the original, and one is left with ambiguity as to whether Jewish Law intended that a synagogue be built in the highest place in the city or that it should be the highest structure in the city. Most of the commentators accept neither of these possible explanations and interpret the “summit of the city” as the central location in the city from a functional standpoint. In other words, the synagogue should be located in the functional, rather than the physical, center of the city neighborhood or community.15 This was justified not only by the symbolic aspect but by the functional aspect as well. It vindicated the implicit assumption that a synagogue would most conveniently serve the maximum number of residents if it were situated in the functional center. Indeed, the application of this law can be discerned in neighborhood construction, for the synagogues were built in the functional center (and not in the highest place), and they were not even the tallest structures in the neighborhood. This center encompassed the three primary public functions of the neighborhood: the ritual bath, the adjoining stove and water cistern, and the synagogue. The public baths were connected to the ritual bath, for the houses were not furnished with indoor plumbing and washing facilities. The water cistern, where rainwater was gathered, served as the neighborhood’s source of both drinking and bathing water. The residents drew water directly from the water pits. The baking stove was also central to them all because household stoves were uncommon.16 Another religious law that found expression in the planning of a house was that forbidding the installation of a window in one of the walls of the house if a member of the household could gaze through it directly into the house of a neighbor, or even into his courtyard. One was allowed to install 14 Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chaim 150:2; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Prayer 11:2. 15 Zeev Gotthold, “Halakha and Religious Customs in Building and Planning Synagogues in Israel,” in I Shall Dwell in Them [Hebrew], ed. David Cassuto (Jerusalem: Ministry of Education and Culture, 1968), 20; Yosseph Shilhav, “Principles for the Location of Synagogues: Symbolism and Functionalism in a Spatial Context,” The Professional Geographer 35, no. 3 (1983): 324–329. 16 Yossi Katz, “Principles in the Construction of Jewish Neighborhoods outside the Old City of Jerusalem in the Years 1875–1914,” in Historical-Geographical Studies in the Settlement of Eretz Israel [Hebrew], ed. Yossi Katz, Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, and Yehoshua Kaniel, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1991), 108–132.

Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

a window only if it did not face the neighbor’s private property. Likewise, if there was an intervening public domain (for example, a street) between two private domains, one could place a window even if he could look out from it onto his neighbor’s courtyard or house. These halakhic rules stem from another, fundamental rule that deals with the concept of “visual damage,” that is, damage in every sense of the word, which one is therefore enjoined from causing. Such damage is incurred when a person can gaze into the house or courtyard of another;17 it does not express itself solely as an infringement upon privacy, but also as the possibility that it effectively reduces the areas of the affected house. The owner must presumably concentrate his activities, or at least some of them, in that portion of the house that escapes scrutiny from his neighbor’s house. If in any case one can gaze into a private domain from the public domain, then the neighbor is allowed to install a window facing that same private domain, since this does not cause additional harm and is therefore not considered visual damage.18 It emerges that these halakhic rules were also fully implemented in the construction of the neighborhoods, and windows were simply not built in a way that would enable one to look out from one private domain onto another, but only facing the public domain.19 Environmental subjects that are addressed in Jewish Law also found their expression in the building process. For example, it was prohibited to make noise even in one’s own house, if it was unusual noise that could bother the neighbors.20 Likewise, it was prohibited to cause smoke emission in any manner that could harm other residents. One could not open up a barn in a house or courtyard because of the foreseeable environmental damage. The positioning of building materials in the public domain was prohibited as it was considered a potential public nuisance. These matters are explicitly dealt with by Jewish Law, which determines that even if the closest neighbors had consented to this environmental blight, it was in no

17 Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 154:3. 18 Ibid. 19 Katz, “Principles in the Construction”; Code for Meah Shearim Neighborhood [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1889), chapter 5, paragraph 3. The Meah Shearim neighborhood was the fifth to be built outside the walls of the Old City, and its founders worked up detailed codes to govern ways of life in the neighborhood and its management. These codes, which were copied by other neighborhoods, are based in their totality on sources of Jewish Law. 20 Code for Meah Shearim, chapter 4, paragraph 1.

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way permitted.21 Together with the aforesaid, it was specifically determined in the neighborhood bylaws that noise caused by the study of Torah, whether it emanated from a school or from a private house, could not be deemed a disturbance.22 The residents were obligated to maintain not only the cleanliness of their own house, but also the cleanliness of the part of the public domain adjacent to their house, as well as that of the public facilities.23 These matters were based on the injunction of the Torah, “and your camp shall be holy.”24 Another environmental issue was the planning of gardens within the center of the neighborhood. Not only does Jewish Law not mandate the planting of gardens in a place of residence, but with regard to Jerusalem there is an explicit halakhic rule that prohibits the planting of gardens in the city because of its holiness. The founders of the new Jerusalem neighborhoods and those heading them were aware of this law and of the problematic situation it created. The prospects for planting gardens in the neighborhood, thus enhancing the quality of life in it while creating conditions opposite to those that existed within the walls of the Old City, seemed to be at risk. In the end, the community leaders relied on a different religious law that determined that the prohibition on planting, as well as that on raising chickens, for reasons of holiness, had been valid only when the Temple existed.25 Regarding matters of organization, Jewish Law is expressed in various ways. First, each neighborhood had a committee that dealt with all public affairs and enjoyed broad authority and sweeping powers. Among other things, the committee could evict people who did not meet the payments for the construction of their houses or those who entered disputes with their neighbors. It should be emphasized that it was possible to evict people even if they had already made some of the payments.26 The authority was also derived from Jewish Law, a fact one can deduce from the compendia of neighborhood bylaws, which, among other things, determined the rules of behavior in the neighborhood and governed relations between the residents. With regard to the source of the 21 22 23 24 25 26

Ibid., paragraphs 1, 3. Ibid., paragraph 4. Ibid., chapter 6, paragraphs 2–4. Deuteronomy 23:15. Code for Meah Shearim, chapter 1, paragraph 3, note 2. Ibid., chapter 1, paragraphs 5–6.

Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

neighborhood committee’s authority, local bylaws referred to the rabbinic decree that rules that if the city residents had accepted upon themselves a group of people to head and lead them, then those people, with a view toward preserving order and a well-regulated city, had the authority even to inflict a monetary loss upon a city’s resident.27 An additional bylaw decreed that a dispute or suit by one of the tenants had to be adjudicated before a Jewish court and the tenant or the neighborhood committee was enjoined from turning to a secular court (the Turkish court).28 This bylaw was also rooted in Jewish Law.29 As observant Jews, the founders and leaders of the neighborhoods decided that, in addition to the synagogue and ritual bath, which were mandatory for the observance of basic commandments, other communal institutions that also emanated from a religious lifestyle would be constructed in the neighborhood. These institutions included a Talmud Torah, a school for elementary education that taught exclusively religious subjects; Biqur Cholim (“visiting the sick”), an organ whose purpose was to assist the infirm and their families in all that was needed; a free-loan fund for the needy and their families; and houses designated especially for hospitality. The study of the Torah, aiding the sick, and hospitality are commandments to which Judaism attaches special importance, and therefore it was self-evident that the communal institutions associated with them had to be in place from the time the neighborhood was populated.30 Another organizational matter that was determined by Jewish Law dealt with the order of settling in the neighborhood. This was performed in two stages. During the first stage, a lottery was held among all the future tenants for the houses whose construction was to be completed during that year. The winners of the lottery were during that time living in houses they had obtained temporarily until the construction of all the houses in the neighborhood was completed. Once they were ready, an additional lottery was held to determine the permanent allocation of each house to a tenant. Until the second lottery, those living in a housing unit were forbidden to make any alterations or additions to it, whereas these were permitted after 27 Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 2:1, especially the comments by the Rema (Rabbi Moses Isserles) and the Turei Zahav. 28 Code for Meah Shearim, chapter 6, paragraph 8. 29 Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 26. 30 Code for Meah Shearim, chapters 8–12.

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the second lottery.31 The source of this prohibition is found in the laws of partnership in Jewish Law that determine that, in the event of a partnership, neither partner is permitted to make any change regarding the mutual property without the knowledge of the other partner. This prohibition still applied if one partner did something without the knowledge of his fellow partner, and the latter remained silent when the deed became known, seemingly giving tacit consent to the action after the fact. Even in such a case, the actions of the first partner were null and void and he was obligated to restore the status quo ante.32 According to Jewish Law, the legal status of a person living in a housing unit after the first lottery was that of a partner of all the other people who had not yet received housing units. Therefore, it was prohibited to make any changes or additions to the house. In contradistinction, after the second lottery, the tenant resided in a house that was exclusively his own and could therefore make alterations and additions as he deemed fit.33 From the 1890s onward, a less observant population began penetrating the neighborhood and the centrality of Jewish Law to neighborhood life diminished. In contradistinction, beginning in the 1960s, we can observe a renewed and accelerated process of the construction of neighborhoods that are populated exclusively by ultra-Orthodox Jews. Some of the subjects raised above, and especially the erection of public and communal institutions required by a Jewish lifestyle, characterize also these neighborhoods, where one can recognize an effort to integrate Jewish Law into daily life (such as prohibiting vehicular movement in the neighborhood on the Sabbath, obligating visitors from outside the neighborhood to dress modestly, and other sundry examples). This topic, however, exceeds the scope of our discussion.

Religion and the observances of Jewish Law in the agricultural settlements Upon the establishment of the agricultural settlements and in the initial period following their inception, their entire population was, as mentioned, a religious one. Therefore, religion occupied a central place in the life of 31 See Jerusalem Municipal Archives, Code Book for the Neighborhood Even Yisrael and Mishkenot Yisrael. 32 Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 176–182. 33 Code Book for the Neighborhoods Even Yisrael and Mishkenot Yisrael.

Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

these settlements. The very mode of agricultural settlement was predicated on nuclear settlements and not upon separate family farms, and this choice was due partially to religious reasons. Many religious laws and services require a community of people living in proximity to each other. Consider, for example, the religious obligation to pray in a synagogue with a quorum of no less than ten men over the age of thirteen, while the prohibition of riding on the Sabbath made it impossible to reach a distant synagogue. This factor, taken together with the fact that we are dealing with the pre-automobile age in Palestine, mitigated against a framework based on separate farms and dictated those based on nuclear settlements, that is, villages. Indeed, in the period of our discussion (and, in fact, afterwards as well), one cannot find any Jewish farms in Palestine, and the isolated attempts to establish farms resulted in failure. As was the case with urban neighborhoods, the settlements were established and managed according to a set of ordinances legislated by those who initiated their founding. One of the first and most fundamental of the ordinances determined that the settlements had to be conducted according to the commandments of the Torah, which the farmers were required to observe in their day-to-day life.34 Indeed, this ordinance determined that a rabbi should be appointed for the settlement who would handle all religious affairs.35 This ordinance was indeed observed. It emerges, however, that even in subsequent periods, when the population of the settlement was no longer entirely Orthodox, the post of settlement rabbi remained. Generally, the rabbi served as the ritual slaughterer too, as well as the circumciser, and this was his raison d’être in the moshavah even in periods subsequent to the era of our discussion, when the settlements had already experienced processes of secularization. In the settlements, the requisite religious institutions were established, such as the synagogue and ritual bath, communal functions that a religious lifestyle mandated. 34 See, for example, Codes of Jewish Law for the Settlement of Rishon LeZion, in The First Aliyah [Hebrew], vol. 2, ed. Mordechai Eliav (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Ministry of Defense, 1981), 35–38. 35 Yehoshua Kaniel, “The Old Community and the New Settlement,” in The First Aliyah [Hebrew], vol. 1, ed. Mordechai Eliav (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Ministry of Defense, 1981), 269–288; Yosef Salmon, “The Bilu Movement,” in The First Aliyah [Hebrew], vol. 1, ed. Mordechai Eliav (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Ministry of Defense, 1981), 136–137. See, for example, Code for Rishon LeZion, in Aharon Freiman, Jubilee Book for the History of Rishon LeZion [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1907), 3–9, and especially bylaw 37.

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In addition, a religious school for children and a hospitality house were erected, among other things, and, according to the ordinances, settlers were permitted to sue fellow Jews only before a religious Jewish court and not in a civil court.36 Like neighborhoods, settlements were managed by a committee that derived its power and authority from Jewish Law. By virtue of this authority, as in the case of the neighborhood committees, this committee too could evict a resident from the settlement if he defied the ordinances. Eviction procedures could be carried out even in the event that they would inflict severe economic damage on the resident.37 For example, one could be evicted due to land use that constituted an environmental blight for the moshavah in its entirety or to the adjacent neighborhoods. This ordinance, too, was based on Jewish Law.38

The observance of commandments dependent on the land in the moshavot: the problem of the sabbatical year It is possible to discern a great deal of similarity between the place occupied by Jewish Law in the construction of urban neighborhoods and the analogous place it had in the establishment and development of the rural settlements. One topic, however, was unique to the agricultural moshavot and should be dealt with in detail. It concerns the observances of religious commandments connected with agriculture, which are termed in halakhic literature “commandments dependent on the land.” These were mandatory primarily within the boundaries of the Land of Israel. The desire to observe the commandments dependent on the land and to achieve religious completion was, as we have seen, one of the actual reasons for the shift toward agricultural settlement. In the settlement ordinances, it was specifically noted that “the members of the settlement were obligated to observe all the commandments dependent on the land.”39

36 37 38 39

Code for Rishon LeZion, 3–9, and especially bylaw 37. Ibid., bylaw 44. Ibid., bylaw 33. Ibid., bylaw 36.

Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

There are five groups of commandments connected to agricultural labor and the area of their applicability and obligation is mostly limited to the Land of Israel. These groups are shemitah, tithes and offerings, gifts to the poor, laws of forbidden mixtures, and orlah (immature trees). The laws concerning the shemitah postulate that in every seven-year cycle a Jew is prohibited from working the land for an entire year. All forms of work are forbidden, including caring for existing vegetation, sowing, planting, irrigating, and fertilizing. Those species that grow spontaneously during that year are not considered the property of the field owner and anyone interested can enter the field and gather them. Tithes and offerings are a set percentage of the agricultural yield that, in the days of the Temple, were given over by the field owner directly to the priests, the Levites and the poor. According to Jewish Law, it is prohibited to eat from the crop before tithes and offerings have been set aside. In contradistinction to many laws that lapsed with the destruction of the Temple, the obligation to set aside tithes and offerings continued to exist even after the destruction. Indeed, even today, according to Jewish Law, there is an obligation to set aside a specific amount of each species before one can eat the crop. The quantity set aside is destroyed. Gifts to the poor are a series of commandments that obligate the field owner to set aside in his field a part of the crop for destitute people. The field owner has to leave one-sixtieth of the crop unreaped or unpicked, so that the poor people can take it, as well as wheat or fruit that fall from the scythe during reaping or from the hand during picking. Additionally, he is prohibited from returning and gathering grain or fruit that he had forgotten to remove from the field and must leave it in the field for the poor. Another commandment determines that crops that grow separately and not in clusters must also be left for the poor. The laws of forbidden mixtures include prohibitions to sow together seeds of two different species (wheat with barley, for example) and to graft two types of trees (an almond and a plum, for example). The orlah commandment determines that Jews cannot eat the fruit of a tree during the initial three years after its planting. When the Temple existed, in the tree’s fourth year an additional commandment was observed: the owner would bring the fruit of the tree to Jerusalem and eat it there in a state of holiness. Since the destruction of the Temple, Jews must redeem the fruit of the fourth year monetarily (as it is considered sacred) for a certain sum, and this money must then be destroyed. Notably, whereas the commandments regarding the sabbatical year, offerings

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and tithes, hybridization of seeds, and redemption of the fourth year are applicable only in the Land of Israel, the commandments of gifts to the poor, hybridization of trees, and the prohibition on eating fruit before the fourth year are applicable outside the Land of Israel as well.40 All the commandments connected with agricultural labor were obligatory on the Jews in the agricultural settlements. (In Israel’s religious kibbutzim and moshavot, these laws are observed to this day.) While the observance of most of these agriculturally related commandments did not occasion any special difficulties, the same could not be said regarding observance of the sabbatical year. This encountered more severe obstacles because it involved the total cessation of every form of work on the land for the period of an entire year, with its huge implicit economic damage. This was especially true if we consider that the agricultural areas were quite young and failure to cultivate them for a year could cause irreversible damage. This problem led to a clear clash not only between Jewish Law and economics, but also between Jewish Law and the national vision of agricultural labor. Observance of the sabbatical year command would have led inevitably to an abandonment of the land by a farmer not only during the sabbatical year, but even during the following year, given the inability to rehabilitate the damages from the sabbatical year. The rabbis in Palestine and in the Diaspora were requested by the farmers in the settlements to furnish a legal opinion. Did one have to observe all the strictures of the sabbatical year command, or could one find at least a temporary solution within the framework of Jewish Law that would permit cultivation during the sabbatical year? The rabbis were divided in their opinions. Some ruled unambiguously that one had to observe the sabbatical year with all its strictures, with neither compromises nor any considerations for the economic results or repercussions on the Jewish settlement project in Palestine. Their principal contention was that the sabbatical year was a clear and explicit commandment in the Torah for which one could not 40 Regarding commandments dependent on the land, see Hayim Shevel, ed., Sefer HaChinuch (The Book of Education) [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1961); Yechiel Michel Tucazinsky, The Book of the Sabbatical Year [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1958); idem, “An Abridgement of the Laws Governing the Land of Israel,” in Kitzur Shulchan Arukh (The Abridged Code of Jewish Law) [Hebrew], by Shlomo Ganzfried (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1977); Kalman Kahana, Commandments of the Land [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: The Institute for Research of Agriculture according to the Torah, 1979).

Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

grant any easements. They suggested the organization of special monetary appeals in order to solve the economic problem of the farmers during the sabbatical year.41 Other rabbis sought to make various allowances to enable cultivation under certain conditions. These permits, which, in any case, were given only on a temporary basis and never considered a permit in principle, shared a common base: the fictitious sale of the land to non-Jews (generally to Arabs). In this manner, the land was not considered under Jewish ownership, and the obligation to maintain the sabbatical year did not apply; however, additional conditions were imposed on the farmers. They had to sell the land to non-Jews (in a fictitious sale) and could perform only certain tasks, while employing non-Jews for agricultural labor. The sale had to be fixed for a determined time so that it would be considered a limited sale (a quasi-tenancy).42 The last condition was required in order to get around another item of Jewish Law that prohibited the sale of real estate in the Land of Israel and anything tied to it to a non-Jew.43 In practice, this posed a difficulty. On the one hand, labor on the land during the sabbatical year could not be permitted if the land was not sold to a non-Jew. On the other hand, the sale of plots in the Land of Israel to a non-Jew was also prohibited by the Torah. The only solution found was to sell land for a limited time. In other words, land was put under tenancy or rented, though this too was quite problematic, because Jewish Law also prohibits renting land to nonJews in the Land of Israel.44 But since this is not explicitly stated in the Torah, yet merely a decree of the Talmudic Sages, who feared that a person renting his land would eventually sell it, it provided a legal loophole for rabbis to issue the permit and to assent thereby to the working of the land during the sabbatical year.45 Farmers were divided among themselves between those who relied on this permit and those who accepted the decision of the stricter rabbis and totally refrained from working their land during the sabbatical year.46 41 Yehoshua Kaniel, Continuity and Change: Old Yishuv and New Yishuv during the First and Second Aliyah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1981), 129–134; Ben-Zion Dinburg, Chibat Zion [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Chevra, 1934), 214–226. See also Kaniel, “The Old Community.” 42 Tucazinsky, The Book of the Sabbatical Year, 59–66. 43 Talmud Bavli, Avodah Zarah 12b. 44 Tucazinsky, The Book of the Sabbatical Year, 61. 45 Ibid., 60–61. 46 Ibid. See also above, note 41.

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Jewish religion and spatial and communal organization in Palestine from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present Although this study makes no pretense to venture beyond the nineteenth century, it emerges, nonetheless, that the influence of Jewish Law upon spatial and communal organization, in the urban as well as the agricultural settlement setting, was not a passing phenomenon. The influence exerted by Jewish Law persists to this day in those neighborhoods or agricultural settlements whose entire population is Orthodox and particularly ultra-Orthodox. It must be emphasized, however, that observance of Jewish Law in urban neighborhoods or agricultural settlements in the nineteenth century was considered the natural order of things, as the entire Jewish population was Orthodox. The present situation is different. Since the close of the nineteenth century, the majority of the Jewish population is non-Orthodox, so the religious neighborhoods and agricultural settlements now afford the option of maintaining a robust religious framework and a lifestyle that is not disturbed by the nonreligious surroundings.47 Let us briefly sketch the influence of Jewish Law on the spatial and communal organization of town and countryside during the last generations. During the period of the British Mandate for Palestine (1918–1948), a number of Orthodox associations were founded in Jerusalem, which endeavored to “establish a Hebrew neighborhood in the environs of Jerusalem that would be governed by the oral and written law.”48 These associations stipulated, inter alia, in their bylaws that each resident of the neighborhood would be legally bound to a clause stating that “a member may not rent or transfer his housing unit to someone who does not comport himself according to the written and oral law.”49 In other words, private and communal life would be regulated by Jewish Law. The residents had to obey the neighborhood committees, who drew their authority from various Jewish laws connected with governing a community. The committees

47 On this topic, see Yosseph Shilhav, “Religious Influence in a Cultural Space: ‘Haredi’ Jerusalem” [Hebrew], City and Region 19–20 (1989): 28–51. 48 “Bylaws of the ‘Kiryat Shmuel’ Neighborhood Association, Jerusalem 1930,” in Binyamin Kluger, Jerusalem Is Surrounded by Neighborhoods [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: B. Kluger, 1979), 276–277. 49 Ibid.

Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

were obligated to construct the entire range of religious institutions in the neighborhood.50 Following the establishment of the State of Israel, and especially from the 1970s onward, many neighborhoods consisting of thousands of homes, in Jerusalem and elsewhere, have been established whose population is homogeneously ultra-Orthodox. Due to their size, these neighborhoods have been termed “townlets” (krayot). They are governed by committees that exercise sweeping authority derived from Jewish Law, and are entrusted with drawing up special bylaws for the neighborhoods. (This is in contrast to the non-religious neighborhoods that were founded contemporaneously, where neither neighborhood committees nor bylaws exist and residents are obligated solely to observe the municipality ordinances.) The bylaws governing neighborhoods founded in recent decades stipulate that “the right of residence in the neighborhood is restricted to someone who personally observes Torah and the religious commandments.”51 Other bylaws enjoin the neighborhood’s residents to adhere strictly to the laws of modesty, to be diligent about setting aside time for Torah study, and to assist one another. All these are fundamental to Jewish Law. One way of providing concrete expression to the bylaw on mutual assistance has been the establishment in these neighborhoods of voluntary associations that engage in providing interest-free loans and lend out various items gratis. Both the lent items and the basic capital of the loan funds are gathered from the neighborhood’s residents. Prominent features of the aforesaid neighborhoods are the numerous synagogues and other religious institutions, such as yeshivas, Talmud Torahs and religious schools and kindergartens. The siting and the size of the synagogues are most noticeable. On the Sabbath, when travel is prohibited by Jewish Law, the neighborhood is closed to vehicular traffic. Proposals were raised in the 1980s to base the ordinances of the religious communal settlements in Judea and Samaria (which are, for all practical purposes, suburbs) upon Jewish Law also.52 This has not been put into effect, and the ordinances are still based on the general law. However, 50 Ibid. See also “Bylaws of the Bayit VaGan Association,” in Kluger, Jerusalem Is Surrounded by Neighborhoods, 205; Michael Hazani, Between the Extremes [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1982), 18–21. 51 See, for example, “Bylaws of Kiryat Sanz in Jerusalem,” in Kluger, Jerusalem Is Surrounded by Neighborhoods, 77. 52 Nechemia Taylor, “The Settlement’s Secretariat and Its Practices” [Hebrew], Tehumin: A Compendium of Jewish Religious Law 9 (1988): 103–115.

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the acceptance committees of these settlements will only accept religious residents, and the latter commit not to sell or rent their houses to anyone who is not religious. The influence of Jewish Law on the spatial and communal organizations of religious agricultural settlement is apparent in many spheres. The avowed purpose of the religious agricultural settlements (kibbutzim and moshavot) that were established in Palestine from the 1920s onward was to create “a new type of lifestyle in the Land, a rejuvenated and verdant life of Torah, a life befitting a laboring people, rooted to the soil of its homeland—in short, the creation of a society of religious workers in Israel,” predicated on “the imposition of a Torah regime and a sound social order throughout the Land.”53 The religious settlements sought to establish themselves adjacent to each other because of the inability of each to shoulder on its own the burden of the cultural and educational institutions unique to a religious community. There was an explicitly stated apprehension that an isolated religious settlement submerged in a sea of non-religious settlements could not survive spiritually in its secular surroundings. This led to the formation of a unique settlement model—blocs of religious settlements—which survives to this day.54 The commandments dependent on the land, which we noted above, are observed in the religious agricultural settlements, and this applies to the sabbatical year as well. Most of the settlements have solved the problem of work during the sabbatical year by a fictitious sale of the land to nonJews.55 Nevertheless, a small portion of them have not adopted this solution and they do not work their land at all during the sabbatical year. Growing hydroponic species and employing the settlements’ residents in recreational

53 Michael Hazani, “On Religious Settlement in the Land of Israel,” in On the Path to Fulfillment [Hebrew], edited by Nathan Bistritzky (Agmon) (Jerusalem: Keren Kayemet LeIsrael, 1950), 166–176. 54 Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: n.p., 1942), 124; Religious Israel Book [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Hasbarah, 1954), 166. 55 For a copy of the formal deed of property sale, see Tehumin: A Compendium of Jewish Religious Law [Hebrew] 7 (1986): 27.

Neighborhoods and Agricultural Settlements in the Land of Israel

enterprises during that year offer a partial solution to the income problem during this time.56 From time to time the religious settlements encounter difficulties in operating an agricultural farm according to Jewish Law; however, the rabbis generally manage to find a solution within its framework. A thorny problem, which was only partially resolved at the beginning, was that of milking on the Sabbath. In principle, milking on this holy day is prohibited by Jewish Law, since it constitutes labor, which is forbidden for Jews on the Sabbath. The problem was resolved in the 1950s with the introduction of electronic milking machines. These are turned on prior to the Sabbath and operate automatically (rather than manually), which is permissible according to Jewish Law.57

Conclusion Jewish Law was a central factor in the establishment and development of Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem and agricultural settlements toward the close of the nineteenth century. The Orthodox character of the populations of both communities underscored the necessity to implement relevant Jewish laws that dealt with the construction of residential areas and with the management and organization of the community inhabiting them. Likewise, there was a deeply perceived commitment to fulfill the commandments connected with agricultural labor in the Land of Israel to which Jewish Law addresses itself extensively. It seems that in the period discussed the religious laws dealing with various geographic settlement matters were implemented for the first time in centuries. Over many generations, the Jewish People had not engaged in either building living quarters or agricultural labor in the Land of Israel of its own initiative. The Jewish Law rooted in the Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud, while addressing itself to the contemporary conditions, expresses the fundamental values of Jewish culture. These manifest in the various modes and spheres of the 56 Religious Israel, 178–179. This practice has been adopted by Kibbutz Chafetz Chayim, which belongs to the Poalei Agudat Yisrael movement, as opposed to the kibbutzim of the Religious Kibbutz, which are affiliated with the Mizrachi Movement, and which rely on the rabbinical dispensation allowing for the fictitious sale of land during the sabbatical year. 57 Haim Yair Peles, “The Religious Settlement Movement in Palestine in the 1920s-1930s” [Hebrew] (PhD thesis, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1986), 203–207.

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life of an Orthodox Jew, and they found concrete expression in the realm of spatial organization during the process of building neighborhoods in Jerusalem and the early settlements. A distinctive spatial organization was created for the Jewish settlement, which differed from what the Muslim or Christian communities produced, and from the subsequent creations of non-Orthodox Jewish communities whose lifestyle was not designed largely by an obligation toward Jewish Law. The spatial arrangement of the Jewish settlement created in Palestine toward the end of the nineteenth century was not a passing episode, and one can still encounter it, especially in ultra-Orthodox communities (particularly in Jerusalem) and in religious settlements in the State of Israel.

Chapter 2

Environmental Concerns in the Bylaws of Jerusalem’s First Neighborhoods

Since the 1860s, many building associations, or societies, were established in Jerusalem with the aim of founding new neighborhoods outside the Old City walls. Some of the first and most significant associations were Nahalat Shiva, Even Yisrael and Mishkenot Yisrael, which, during the 1870s and 1880s, established eponymous neighborhoods.1 The history of these associations and neighborhoods has been the subject of quite a lot of research literature as well as general literature, both of which assert that the ideological and social change in the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem was the background for building the new neighborhoods.2 This literature deals also with geographical aspects of the process, such as the spatial distribution of the neighborhoods and the intra-neighborhood land uses;3 however, the existing literature has dealt very little with the environmental aspects and with the value attributed to them in the process of planning and building the neighborhoods4—although the entrepreneurs who established them were bothered by these questions.

1 Katz, “Principles in the Construction.” 2 Israel Bartal, “Exit from the Walls: Expansion of the Old or Beginning of the New?” in Jerusalem in Zionist Vision and Realization [Hebrew], ed. Hagit Lavsky (Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center, 1989), 17–33. 3 Ben-Arieh, A City Reflected in Its Times, vol. 2. 4 Cf. ibid.; and Ruth Kark, Jerusalem Neighborhoods: Planning and By-Laws (1855–1930) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1991).

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The aim of this chapter is to shed some light on these issues, mainly by analyzing the bylaws of the first neighborhoods, which deal with questions of environment.5 As such questions are drawing more and more interest— in international as well as local contexts, from the theoretical and practical points of view—it is interesting to see which environmental aspects were considered when planning the new Jerusalem neighborhoods outside the walls, and what the source they drew from was.

Combining Halakha into the bylaws of the building associations and neighborhoods Upon establishment of the new building associations of the Old Yishuv, their committees composed bylaws that laid the organizational-legal, economic, and planning basis for the foundation of the associations and later for the construction of the neighborhoods. The bylaws of all the associations greatly resembled each other,6 probably because each association copied its bylaws from those preceding it. The aim of the bylaws was “that each of the members of the association should know his duty and his right; what he should do and maintain and what he should keep away from. Thus, the peace, respect and unity will be maintained in the association.”7 The bylaws dealt extensively with electing the committees of the association and the neighborhood, arrangements regarding member fees and their collection, the order of moving into the houses, the overall building plan, room size, and house design. The bylaws also referred to environmental issues.8 Later, when the neighborhoods were built, extended versions of the bylaws were composed, dealing mainly with relevant issues: leadership in the neighborhoods, the duties of the neighborhood committee, the status of public areas, building a synagogue and setting the liturgical style of prayer services, and establishing intra-neighborhood institutions (such as Torah study classes, visiting the sick, charity, and hospitality). The bylaws also set the rules for what the resident was allowed or not allowed to do with regard 5 The analysis is based primarily on the bylaws of Meah Shearim neighborhood; see Code for Meah Shearim. 6 Katz, “Principles in the Construction,” 109–110. 7 CZA, file J533/77, Mishkenot Yisrael Association Bylaws 1876. 8 For the bylaws of the associations Nahalat Shiva, Meah Shearim, Even Yisrael, and Mishkenot Yisrael, see Kluger, Jerusalem Is Surrounded by Neighborhoods; Kark, Jerusalem Neighborhoods, 45–51.

Environmental Concerns in the Bylaws of Jerusalem’s First Neighborhoods

to environmental issues.9 The bylaws and the source of their legal authority were rooted in Jewish Halakha: Torah, the laws of Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah, Shulchan Arukh and responsa literature. Being observant Jews, the members of the various building associations and the neighborhoods’ residents wished to base the construction of the neighborhoods, their organization, and their function on Jewish Halakha in each relevant matter. Environmental issues were also based on Halakha, as we shall see hereafter.10

Environmental bylaws The basic outlook reflected in the bylaws, from which stemmed the directives regarding environment preservation and other related issues, held that each resident had the duty “not to cause any damage or trouble to his fellow resident, far or close.”11

Maintaining cleanliness The obligation to maintain cleanliness in one’s private property as well as in the public domain was a central article in the bylaws discussing environmental issues:12 The duty to maintain general cleanliness will apply to all residents of the place in general and to the person who is elected for this specifically . . . and the committee has the authority to force him in every possible way, even to expel him from the association.13

As the source for this obligation, the bylaws quoted Deuteronomy 23:15: “Since the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you . . . let 9 Code for Meah Shearim. Meah Shearim was a prototype for the authors of the bylaws, and it served as an example to the founders of other neighborhoods. See Bartal, “Exit from the Walls.” 10 On this, see Yossi Katz, “The Role of Jewish Halakha in the Building of the First Jewish Neighborhoods outside the Walls of the Old City,” in Proceedings of Israeli Geographical Society Conference, December 16–18, 1979 [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Israeli Geographical Society, 1979), 90–95. See also idem, “Principles in the Construction,” 110; Chapter 1. 11 Code for Meah Shearim, 23. 12 See Even Yisrael Association Bylaws, in Kark, Jerusalem Neighborhoods, 48–49; CZA, file J533/77, Mishkenot Yisrael Association Bylaws 1876; Arieh Gini Collection, Mishkenot Yisrael Association Bylaws 1880; Mazkeret Moshe Association Bylaws 1882, in Yaakov Gellis, Jerusalem Neighborhoods [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Sifriyat Rishonim, 1962), appendix; Code for Meah Shearim. 13 Arieh Gini Collection, Mishkenot Yisrael Association Bylaws 1880, 10.

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your camp be holy; let Him not find anything unseemly among you and turn Him away from you.” Therefore the members and residents of our association Meah Shearim are obligated to be careful about the cleanliness of the place, each in his private property as well as in the public domain in front of his yard . . . and they should not litter or spill fetid water.14

The bylaws indicated especially the obligation to keep the toilets clean, “so that one should not cause any damage in air quality, as is well known.” There was also concern about the habit of people to throw the garbage from their private property to the public domain, and the members were warned not to do so: “And whoever violates this once or twice will be punished when doing this for the third time.” On this matter, the bylaws adopted the strict halakhic ruling, for there were halakhic authorities that under certain conditions were lenient and exempted people who threw their garbage in a public area, and it later caused damage.15

The location of toilet rooms As was customary at the time, toilet rooms were built outside the houses, and the bylaws stated that they must be located at the edge of the plot on which the house was built. Indeed, the residents were allowed to change the location of the toilet rooms and even place them closer to their house, but one had to “move them away from his neighbor’s plot so as not to cause him any damage.”16 The bylaws required that the access to the pit latrine of the toilets would always be located in the private property and not in the public domain. Also, openings from the toilet rooms to the public domain were strictly forbidden.17

Noise prevention It was prohibited to use the land in any way that would cause noise that is a nuisance to the neighbors in their yards or houses. It was also emphasized 14 15 16 17

Code for Meah Shearim, 25. Code for Meah Shearim, 25–26 and note on p. 26. Ibid., 26. Cf. Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 155:34–36. Code for Meah Shearim, note on p. 25.

Environmental Concerns in the Bylaws of Jerusalem’s First Neighborhoods

that even if the close neighbors excused this matter, it was still forbidden to do so, because the distant neighbors had the right to protest. In any event, based on the ruling of the Shulchan Arukh, the person causing the nuisance may never claim the right to make noise based on the fact that it had been sounded for long periods of time in the past and no one had complained. Similarly, the person causing the nuisance did not have the right to claim that the use of the land causing the noise preceded the arrival of the complainant.18 However, in accordance with the ruling of the Shulchan Arukh, the bylaws allowed residents to open a Talmud Torah (a religious school) in their houses (even for a large number of children, and even if there were other synagogues and schools in the area where children could study), regardless of the noise causing a nuisance to the neighbors. This permission was conditional upon the schools aiming at religious studies only. Similarly, every land use that involved the observance of commandments was allowed, even if it caused noise.19 As stated, the source of these bylaws is the ruling of the Shulchan Arukh: When a store is located in a courtyard, the neighbors can protest, telling the owner: We cannot sleep because of the noise made by the people going in and out. Instead, he should perform his work at home and sell it in the marketplace. . . . Similarly, a person may teach Jewish children Torah in his house. The other neighbors may not protest against him, saying: We cannot sleep because of the noise made by the school children. The same applies to all other commandments, against which the neighbors may not protest.20

It seems that the high value accorded to Torah study in Judaism explains the permission to run Torah study classrooms in private homes, even though they caused noise nuisance to nearby residents in the neighborhood.

Pollution prevention The bylaws of the neighborhoods did not allow residents to cause air pollution even in one’s own property if other people might suffer from it. Thus, it was not permitted to set a fire that caused smoke, even if it was not 18 Ibid., 23. Cf. Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 155. 19 Code for Meah Shearim, 24. 20 Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 156:2–3.

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frequent.21 Also, it was forbidden to build “a cowshed or a sheep pen in one’s home or yard without the permission of the committee.”

Leaving open spaces The bylaws of Meah Shearim neighborhood instructed that open spaces should be left at the center of the neighborhood: Water wells will be there as well as a place for a synagogue when God will enlarge our territory, trees will be planted to bring a clear breeze and a pleasant scent to the residents in the houses.22

As it turned out, though, while open spaces were left in this neighborhood and in other neighborhoods as well, planting them with trees was a problematic issue, as the authors of the Meah Shearim bylaws discovered later that it contradicted an explicit ruling of the Talmud: “And one may not plant gardens and orchards in it [Jerusalem].”23 Following a thorough discussion, during which various arguments regarding the validity of this ruling after the destruction of the Temple were raised, the authors of the bylaws reached the conclusion that at this time “it could not be prohibited nor permitted,” and therefore they left the open spaces bare.24

Building restrictions The bylaws of the first neighborhoods do not refer to the floor area ratio or to the permitted height of the buildings.25 It seems that the issue of building size was left to the architect’s decisions, taking into consideration the municipal guidelines, if there were any. Also, the Halakha does not specifically address this matter. This being said, the bylaws do dictate building restrictions (based on halakhic ruling) that concern “sight damage,” meaning the damage caused to a person when his neighbor can overlook 21 Code for Meah Shearim, 23. Cf. Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 155:36–37. 22 Code for Meah Shearim, 16. Cf. Mazkeret Moshe Association Bylaws 1882, in Gellis, Jerusalem Neighborhoods, appendix, section 9: “On both sides of the roads [in the neighborhood] pleasant-looking trees will be planted.” 23 Talmud Bavli, Bava Kama 82b. 24 Code for Meah Shearim, 15–17 and note on p. 16. 25 Such reference is made regarding Achuzat Bayit neighborhood (eventually Tel Aviv). See Yossi Katz, “Achuzat Bait Association 1906–1909: Laying the Foundations for Tel-Aviv” [Hebrew], Cathedra 33 (1984): 168–169.

Environmental Concerns in the Bylaws of Jerusalem’s First Neighborhoods

into his property by opening a door or a window facing it. The sight damage does not concern only the loss of privacy, but also—and maybe mainly— the fact that the damaged party’s property is actually reduced in size, since they have to limit their activities to those places in their property that are not exposed to their neighbor. Therefore, the Shulchan Arukh rules that “a person may not open up a window or an entrance from his house to his neighbor’s yard . . . for this allows him the possibility of looking at him at all times . . . and if he opens such a window, he must close it.”26 This ruling was adopted by the neighborhoods’ bylaws, which stated, based on the ruling of various scholars, that “if a person opens an entrance or a window in the direction of his neighbor’s property, even if this does not cause him sight damage, he is obligated to close them immediately, and he may not use the claim of tenure”27—that is to say, one should block the door or window immediately, without waiting for the neighbor’s protest.

Limiting the individuals’ use of public domain for their own needs In addition to the prohibition to invade the public domain for expanding one’s house or yard,28 the bylaws forbade in principle any use of the public domain for the needs of the individual in a way the might cause damage to it or its users. The bylaws, as well as the Shulchan Arukh ruling to which they refer, display some examples of such uses. 1. It is prohibited to move stones from private property to the public domain. 2. It is prohibited to dig underground from private property to the public domain, since it might undermine the solidity of the ground in the public domain. 3. The construction of balconies that project from the building into the public domain was allowed only if built at the height of at least a camel and its rider. This was the minimal height according to Halakha in which the balcony did not obstruct free traffic of either people or vehicles in the public domain. Also, a balcony 26 Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 154:3 and commentary. See also the other sections of chapter 154. It should be noted that the Shulchan Arukh elaborates about the issue of sight damage for over twenty sections. 27 Code for Meah Shearim, 24–25. 28 Ibid., 25.

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at this height would not block the light to the public domain, thus maintaining the welfare of the people using it as well as its attractiveness. 4. For similar reasons, the owner of a tree was demanded to trim the branches that protruded from his property into the public domain, unless they were located at a height of at least that of a camel and its rider. 5. Preparing cement in the public domain was allowed only for the purpose of constructing a building, and as long as it did not take much time. It was prohibited altogether if it was meant for the preparation of bricks. 6. Even when the construction was done for the benefit of the public, it was forbidden to leave building materials out in the public domain, and the builders were required to use the materials immediately.29

Conclusion The awareness of environment preservation played an important role in the considerations of the building associations that at the end of the nineteenth century had constructed the first Jewish neighborhoods outside the Old City walls, which later became the nucleus of the new city of Jerusalem. This awareness was in line with the aspiration to build neighborhoods that would be as modern as possible and would grant their residents a quality of life that was so absent in the Old City, as it was one of the initial motives for building new neighborhoods in the first place. For this purpose, the building associations chose high places near the main roads as the construction sites for the neighborhoods; they determined the size of the houses and the number of rooms; and they authored bylaws for the public functions, the voluntary institutions, and their mode of operation.30 The environmental elements that were set in the neighborhood bylaws were usually based on Jewish Halakha. These halakhic rulings, as well as other rulings regarding planning and building (such as the location of the synagogue in the neighborhood), were relevant in the Old City too. In the old neighborhoods, however, it was impossible to implement them because 29 Ibid., 23; Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 417:1–7. 30 Katz, “Principles in the Construction”; Ben-Arieh, A City Reflected in Its Times, vol. 2.

Environmental Concerns in the Bylaws of Jerusalem’s First Neighborhoods

of ownership issues and since the Jewish residents there had entered already existing buildings. Only in the first neighborhoods outside the walls, being a new, top-to-bottom creation of observant Jews, could the “Jewish planning and building law” be implemented and was, indeed. The influence of the relevant environmental rulings is evident in the 1879 bylaws of Petach Tiqva, a moshavah that was also built by settlers from the Old Yishuv.31 Later on, at the beginning of the twentieth century and during the period of the British Mandate, modern Jewish neighborhoods were built that emphasized environmental elements, such as Achuzat Bayit in Tel Aviv, and Rehavia and Beit HaKerem in Jerusalem.32 The environmental elements that were implemented in these neighborhoods were based, however, not on Jewish Halakha, but on models developed in Western Europe following the Garden City idea that started to spread in Europe at the turn of the centuries.33

31 Alter Druyanov, On the History of Chibat Zion and the Settlement of Eretz Yisrael [Hebrew], vol. 3 (Tel Aviv and Odessa: n.p., 1932), 280–286; Yaakov Yaari (Polaskin) and Mordechai Kharizman (eds.), Jubilee Book: Fifty Years to the Establishment of Petach Tiqva, 1878–1928 [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Vaadat Sefer HaYovel, 1929), 48–52. It appears that the first bylaws of Rishon LeZion were also influenced by Jewish Halakha. See the bylaws in Codes of Jewish Law for the Settlement of Rishon LeZion, especially bylaw 33, which states: “A workshop for processing leather and other things that harm the air or the water should not be done at all.” 32 Katz, “Achuzat Bait Association 1906–1909”; Gideon Bigger, “Garden Suburbs in Jerusalem: Planning and Development under Early British Rule, 1917–1925” [Hebrew], Cathedra 6 (1977): 108–132. 33 Yossi Katz, “Ideology and Urban Development: Zionism and the Origins of Tel Aviv, 1906–1914,” Journal of Historical Geography 12, no. 4 (1986): 406–408, 416–418; idem, “The Extension of Ebenezer Howard’s Ideas on Urbanization outside the British Isles: The Example of Palestine,” GeoJournal 34, no. 4 (1994): 467–473.

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Chapter 3

The Agricultural Settlement Attempt in Kfar Uriya: Religious Zionist Settlement before the First World War The settlement attempt in Kfar Uriya on the eve of First World War is a chapter in the discourse on Zionist private enterprise efforts outside the Land of Israel to acquire land and establish new agricultural settlements in the Land of Israel during the Second Aliyah and especially from 1908 on. This discourse includes the establishment of Poriya in 1911 by the St. Louis Estate Company, the establishment of Ruchama in 1912 by the Shearit Yisrael Company from Moscow, the establishment of Sharona in 1913 by the Chicago Estate Company, the establishment of Carcur in 1914 by the London Estate Company and the establishment of Kfar Uriya by the Bialystok Association in 1913. The background to the private entrepreneurs’ activity in the area of settlement during this period originates in three main factors. First, this activity was supported by the strengthening of the practical guidelines in the World Zionist Organization followed by the establishment of the Land of Israel Office and the Hachsharat HaYishuv Company in 1908. Second, following the Young Turk Revolution in the summer of 1908, the Zionist agencies had many expectations to expand the settlement possibilities in the Land of Israel. Finally, the private entrepreneurs were attracted by the positive developments in the economic state of the moshavot (rural settlements) in the Land of Israel, as part of the general economic development there during that period.1 This settlement process had several shared characteristics. First, the system of settlement was based on postponing the settlement date until the infrastructure was completed and the agricultural farm was self-sufficient. 1 Yossi Katz, “The Estates Enterprise in the Land of Israel, 1908–1917” [Hebrew] (MA thesis, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1979), 16–140.

The Agricultural Settlement Attempt in Kfar Uriya

Second, the preparatory activities were transferred to the Jewish work manager who mainly hired Jewish workers, mostly from the Second Aliyah (wave of Zionist settlement). However, there was an ongoing tension between the aspiration for profitability, which primarily characterized the work managers, and the ideological aspiration for pure avodah ivrit (Hebrew labor), which the Second Aliyah workers believed in, an aspiration that made the desire for a profitable farm more difficult. Another important consideration is the failure of the planned settlement activity in the 1920s, a failure that was partially due to the effects of the First World War and mostly to structural factors embedded in the system of settlement.2 In the settlement attempt in Kfar Uriya on the slopes of the Judean Mountains, a striking unique component was added. The members of the Bialystok Association were religious Zionists who planned to establish a religious moshavah in Kfar Uriya. This was the only settlement attempt made by religious Zionists during the Second Aliyah.3 The goal of this chapter is to reconstruct the settlement in Kfar Uriya by examining the attempt to integrate the principles of religious settlement with the principles of national settlement, and the ramifications of this attempt on the settlement activity. The chapter is based on archival materials relevant to the Bialystok Association and the beginnings of Kfar Uriya. The materials are located in different files in the Central Zionist Archives and until now have never been published.

The purchase of lands and the preparation of the settlement plan In December 1912, the Hachsharat HaYishuv Company together with the Geula Estate Company completed the purchase of Kfar Uriya.4 The two companies had already begun the acquisition process in 1910. All in all, 2 Idem, “The Settlement Activity in the Land of Israel of the Zionist Companies and Associations, 1900–1914” [Hebrew] (PhD thesis, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1983), 311–357. 3 Astonishingly, the research on the history of settlement has ignored the settlement experience in Kfar Uriya in the period prior to the First World War despite its uniqueness. It seems that Michaeli is the only one who dealt with it, albeit only partially, in his book: Ben Zion Michaeli, The Agricultural Farms: The Beginning of the National Settlement in the Land of Israel, 1899–1914 [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Milo, 1977), 112–117. 4 On the purchase of Kfar Uriya by the Geula Estate Company and the Hachsharat HaYishuv Company, see in detail Katz, “The Settlement Activity,” 147–149 and the footnotes there.

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4,821 dunams (1 dunam = 0.25 acre) were acquired. Approximately half the land was appropriate for sowing and approximately half was suitable for planting. On the land were several wells and a few buildings, among them one building that was suitable for housing ten to fifteen workers. Immediately after the purchase was completed, the Hachsharat HaYishuv Company approached the Bialystok Association with a proposal to purchase Kfar Uriya. The Hachsharat HaYishuv Company priced the land for sale at thirty-five francs per dunam.5 The Bialystok Association was established in August 1909 with the goal of purchasing extensive, inexpensive pieces of land in the Land of Israel and of organizing groups to settle the land. Shortly after its founding, the Association already had 350 Zionist members, most from Bialystok and some from Lodz and Warsaw. Most of its members were from the middle class. It was headed by Yitzchak Horodeshitz and Moshe Mordechai Manshevitz, both observant Jews who were among the heads of the Jewish community in Bialystok.6 In the years 1909–1912, the Association tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to purchase land in different areas in the country, especially in Rafiah and Transjordan.7 Following requests from the Hachsharat HaYishuv Company, the Bialystok Association agreed to purchase Kfar Uriya. In the agreement to purchase Kfar Uriya, the Association’s heads noted that most of their members had long since lost hope that the lands would be purchased and become part of the settlement operations of the Association in the Land of Israel. For more than three and a half years, they had been told about the possibility of purchasing land in different places in the Land of Israel but nothing had materialized.8 In February 1913, the land sale of Kfar Uriya was completed. All in all the Association paid approximately 157,000 francs; nearly half of this sum were monies that the Association received from Allgemeine

5 CZA, file L18/65/7, letter from Ruppin to the Association, December 20, 1912. 6 CZA, file L2/21/1, letter from Warburg to Shatz, November 3, 1909; ibid., letter from Ruppin to the main office of the Jewish National Fund, February 7, 1910. 7 See this in detail: CZA, files L18/289, L18/65/7, L24/45. 8 CZA, file L18/65/7, letter from the Association to Ruppin, 4 Shvat 5673 (1913); ibid., letter from the Association to Ruppin, January 26, 1913.

The Agricultural Settlement Attempt in Kfar Uriya

Jüdische Kolonisations-Organisation (AJKO).9 AJKO approved the sum of 112,000  francs that were primarily for land purchase and the remaining amount went to funding the settlement enterprise itself.10 Immediately after the transaction was completed, the heads of the Association asked the director of the Land of Israel Office and the Hachsharat HaYishuv Company, Dr. Arthur Ruppin, to try and obtain an immediate license for building twenty residential buildings, a synagogue and a miqveh (ritual bath).11 They also asked Dr. Melech Zagorodesky, the agronomist of the Land of Israel Office, to prepare a settlement plan along the guidelines they gave him. The Association’s plan was to start preparatory agricultural work and build houses in the summer of that year. The head of the Association, Manshevitz, also intended to come to the Land of Israel for the settlement arrangements.12 In the spring of 1913, thirty members of the Association who intended to settle in Kfar Uriya met in Bialystok.13 Relying on a detailed proposal prepared by Dr. Zagorodesky,14 the settlement plan for Kfar Uriya was agreed upon. According to the plan, ten members would immediately immigrate and settle in Kfar Uriya. Their farm would be based on grain crops. The other members would work in the orchards; they would immigrate a few years later, after their farms were ready. Each settler would receive 150 dunams, and five of them were intended for building the house 9 CZA, file L18/65/7, letters from Ruppin to Horodeshitz, February 6 and 7, 1913; ibid., letter from Warburg to Ruppin, February 12, 1913; ibid., letter from Tahoun to the Hachsharat HaYishuv Company in Berlin, February 8, 1913. AJKO was established in 1908 by Dr. Alfred Nossig who had left the Zionist Organization shortly before. Regarding AJKO see different publications in CZA, files Z3/651, Z3/1636. Also see Adolf Boehm, Die Zionistische Bewegung, vol. 1 (Berlin: Neuauflage Jüdischer Verlag, 1935), 495–496, 607; Shmuel Almog, “Alfred Nossig; A Reappraisal,” Studies in Zionism 7 (Spring 1983): 14–15; Mordechai Eliav, “The Rafiah Approaches (Pithat-Rafiah) in the History of Jewish Settlement” [Hebrew], Cathedra 3 (1977): 117–208. 10 See prospectus “Kiryat Moshe (Kfar Uriya)—A New Moshavah in the Land of Israel” (Bialystok, 1913), 6–8. 11 CZA, file L18/65/2, letter from the Association to Ruppin, 24 Adar I 5673 (1913); ibid., letter from the Association to Ruppin, 3 Adar II 5673 (1913). 12 CZA, file L18/65/7, letter from the Association to Ruppin, 25 Adar II 5673 (1913); ibid., letter from the Association to Ruppin, 1 Iyar 5673 (1913). 13 See above, note 10. 14 CZA, file L18/65/6, Zagorodesky’s report on Kfar Uriya, March 21, 1913; ibid., settlement plan in Kfar Uriya for the members of the “Association for Buying Land in the Land of Israel” in Bialystok. See the plan in CZA, file J85/109.

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and yard. The remaining land of the village (approximately 320 dunams) would serve “for public buildings needed by the moshavah such as a synagogue, school, and community center,” and other needs not envisioned beforehand. The preparatory work was to be implemented according to the administrative farm approach, which was accepted in the estate moshavot, that is, by a group of workers headed by an estate-appointed director. In the same meeting, two committees were chosen: a moshavah committee to administer the matters of those planning to immigrate right away and establish the moshavah, and an association committee.15 Preparing the settlement plan and choosing the committees were not the only topics raised. The most significant topic seems to have been determining the religious and national principles according to which the new moshavah would be built. A special chapter in the protocol of the meeting, titled “Regarding the general ordinances of the moshavah,” determined: (a) In the general ordinances that still have to be worked out in detail, a main section like this must be added: the moshavah is founded on the principles of Torah and Judaism and the traditional religion. (b) All the work done on the moshavah uses, as much as is possible, Hebrew workers, our Jewish brethren.16

15 “Kiryat Moshe (Kfar Uriya)—A New Moshavah,” 1–4. 16 Ibid., 5. On religious settlement in the Old Yishuv style, see, for example, Peles, “The Attitude of the ‘Old Yishuv’ to Agricultural Settlement,” 148–158. Significantly, in the course of the Bialystok Association’s attempts to purchase land in Rafiah at the end of 1909, the head of the Association, Manshevitz, met with Yoel Moshe Solomon and Zerach Barnet. The two were heads of groups in Jerusalem and Jaffa who also planned to purchase land in Rafiah and to set up a moshavah there. They met through the initiative of Rav Kook, and together with him they formulated ordinances to establish a religious settlement in Rafiah. Among other things, the ordinances emphasized the importance of the obligation to observe the Sabbath and the land-dependent commandments and their opposition to “the tendency to reform cults.” Eliav focused on the ordinances and their importance (Eliav, “The Rafiah Approaches,” 131, 167). Eliav also saw in the ordinances the aspiration to establish a religious settlement, the first of that kind since the establishment of Petach Tiqva. It seems that one can see the ordinances as a plan to establish a religious settlement, similar to the Old Yishuv’s plans to establish other religious settlements, beginning in the 1870s. Two projects were implemented, in Gei Oni and in Petach Tiqva. In my opinion, the Rafiah ordinances have no national Zionist motifs. For the wording of the ordinances, see Rav Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, Igrot HaRaiyah (Collected Letters of Rav Kook) [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1962), vol. 1, 382.

The Agricultural Settlement Attempt in Kfar Uriya

The first section in the ordinances emphasizes the religious principle in the moshavah to be established, and in that it is not at all different from the religious settlement known as the Old Yishuv. However, the second section emphasizes the national-Zionist principle of avodah ivrit (Hebrew labor). In actuality, already at the end of February 1913, the heads of the Association announced to Ruppin that in the meeting they had convened it was decided that the workers who would work the land of Kfar Uriya would be specifically Hebrew (ivriim) workers. . . . [They] would be chosen with the agreement of the Association . . . and they are not allowed to express any opinion in the management of the moshavah . . . and they are committed to being subject to the ordinances of our moshavah.17

It appears that the choice of the words “Hebrew workers” in the moshavah charter, as opposed to “Jewish workers,” was not random. “Hebrew workers” was then the code name for the pioneer workers of the Second Aliyah. Similar to the Shearit Israel Company in Moscow that founded Ruchama, the Bialystok Association emphasized the principle of Hebrew labor even though most of the workers in the Judea moshavot at that time were Arab.18 Apparently, limiting the workers in their management of the moshavah, and their obligation to “being subject to the ordinances of our moshavah,” stemmed from the Association’s desire to hire workers from the Second Aliyah. However, to avoid confrontation on religious matters between the settlers and the workers from the Second Aliyah (who, by and large, were not religious), the latter group was limited beforehand. In any event, the Bialystok Association’s emphasis on the principle of Hebrew labor corresponds with allegiance to the idea of settlement in the Land of Israel despite the many difficulties and obstacles since its establishment, similar to other Zionist groups from Russia and Eastern Europe who organized for settlement in the Land of Israel during the same period. The meeting in Bialystok in 1913 also determined the name of the moshavah—Kiryat Moshe—as a token of gratitude to Moshe Mordechai Manshevitz, head of the Association, “for his tremendous and productive activities for the good of the Association until today and for those deeds that

17 CZA, file L18/65/7, letter from the Association to Ruppin, February 23, 1913. 18 See in detail Katz, “The Settlement Activity,” 346–351.

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he would do in the future for the benefit of the moshavah in volunteering to build a synagogue, a miqveh and other public needs of the moshavah.”19 About a month after the meeting, Rav Kook, who had been in close connection with the Association since 1909, sent his greetings on the founding of the Kiryat Moshe moshavah. In his greetings, both the religious and national principles present in the founding of the new moshavah are interwoven. Rav Kook wrote: How expanded my heart is from the shining light that illuminated my eyes when you rightfully decided to permanently engrave on your charter “that the moshavah is founded on the principles of Torah and Judaism and the traditional religion.” You have outdone yourselves, my dear sirs, when you raised the flag of belief before everyone with your call founded on holiness. . . . And we hope, with the loving-kindness of Israel, that you will serve as a model for the masses who will learn from you in the present and even more so in the future that the light of God will fortify all the activities of our national revival and all our building in the land of our forefathers on the basis of the soul of the immortal living light and His spirit.20

In a letter that Rav Kook wrote the same day to Rabbi  Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky (Ridvaz) regarding the shemitah (the sabbatical year) controversy between them, he emphasized the need for strengthening the religious foundations in the settlements and lauded the Bialystok Association and its institutions: And Blessed is His name, a new moshavah is now planned by the people of Bialystok, and it is clearly detailed in the moshavah ordinances that behavior must be in accordance with the Torah and the commandments, and this greatly intensifies the lifting of the light of Torah and true awe, which is certainly the foundation of the settlement in the Land of Israel.21

19 See “Kiryat Moshe (Kfar Uriya)—A New Moshavah,” 5. Note the religious functions mentioned there. 20 Kook, Igrot HaRaiyah, vol. 1, 183, letter from Rav Kook to the Association, 24 Sivan 5673 (1913). 21 Ibid., 197, letter from Rav Kook to Ridvaz, 24 Sivan 5673 (1913).

The Agricultural Settlement Attempt in Kfar Uriya

The settlement in Kfar Uriya, and the difficulties leading to its failure In April 1913, shortly after the receiving the kushans (bills of sale), the Land of Israel Office sent to Kfar Uriya a pioneer group of nine workers. Aside from guarding the place, the workers arranged the nursery, began road repair, cleared away stones, plowed the land, and started to prepare the standing structures for living quarters. The group remained in Kfar Uriya until October of that year.22 Two months earlier, Manshevitz came to the Land of Israel to organize the settlement in Kfar Uriya. Together with the Land of Israel Office, he examined the different possibilities of preparing the fields of the plantations. The “plantation group” planned to come to Kfar Uriya in 1914. In the end it was decided to appoint Eliezer Krasner, a farmer from Hadera, to oversee the work with the help of Hebrew workers. Krasner was known as a religious person, and was therefore chosen for the job. The Land of Israel Office was also asked to visit Kfar Uriya from time to time and report back to Bialystok.23 In the end of October 1913, Krasner came to Kfar Uriya together with a group of thirty workers whom he chose with the help of the Workers Office in Petach Tiqva. With their arrival, the pioneer group left.24 Shortly afterwards, the HaPoel HaTzair newspaper reported: “In his first steps, the new manager is loyal to Hebrew labor.”25 And actually in the first months the work was all done by Hebrew labor. All the workers were part of Poalei Zion.26

22 CZA, file L18/65/7, letter from the Association to Ruppin, 10 Sivan 5673 (1913); ibid., letter from Ruppin to the Association, 2 Tammuz 5673 (1913). 23 CZA, file L18/65/7, letter from Manshevitz (who was then in the Land of Israel) to Tahoun, 18 Av 5673 (1913); ibid., file L18/65/10, letter from the Land of Israel Office to Eisenberg, 29 Elul 5673 (1913); ibid., letter from the Land of Israel Office to David Neuman from Ekron and a similar letter to M. Smilanski; ibid., file L18/65/7, letter from Manshevitz to Tahoun, 23 Elul 5673 (1913); ibid., letter from the Land of Israel Office to Manshevitz, 13 Tishrei 5674 (1913); ibid., file L18/65/10, letter from the Land of Israel Office to the workers group in Kfar Uriya, 24 Elul 5673 (1913); ibid., letter from the Land of Israel Office to Krasner, 16 Heshvan 5674 (1913); ibid., file L18/65/7, letter from the Association to the Land of Israel Office, 12 Kislev 5674 (1913); Michaeli, The Agricultural Farms, 114. 24 HaPoel HaTzair, October 15, 1913, 22; HaTzfira, October 18, 1913, 3; ibid., December 1, 1913, 2–3; CZA, file L18/65/10, letter from the Land of Israel Office to Krasner, 16 Heshvan 5674 (1913). 25 HaPoel HaTzair, November 28, 1913, 15–16. 26 CZA, file L18/65/10, letter from Krasner to the Land of Israel Office, December 18, 1913.

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The relationship between Krasner and the workers was, however, far from ideal. Several weeks after they began to work, there were disagreements between them and Krasner and a strike broke out. At the end of December 1913, the HaPoel HaTzair newspaper reported that the conflicts stemmed from choosing inexperienced workers and Krasner’s lack of experience and poor organization. However, the main problem was Krasner’s overinvolvement in the workers’ private lives, “in kitchen matters, in kashrut, and in their religiosity.”27 A few months later, Krasner was forced to leave Kfar Uriya. HaPoel HaTzair cynically observed Krasner’s treatment of religious matters: “Mr. Krasner received a lot of publicity by spreading Torah and religion, distributing tefillin [phylacteries] and siddurim [prayer books], and uprooting heresy.”28 In Kfar Uriya, this added a unique dimension to the frequently troubled relationship between work managers and the Second Aliyah workers. The problem was the same in most estate settlements— Havat Kinneret, Merhavia, Sejera and others—in which the administrative approach was used. The attempt in Kfar Uriya—right from the preparatory stage—to create foundations for a religious moshavah and to combine them with the national foundations of Hebrew labor by employing Second Aliyah workers, was unsuccessful. After a brief strike, most of the workers left, and the Histadrut (union) of Judea workers forbade its members to work in Kfar Uriya.29 To replace the workers who had left, Krasner hired Arab workers from the villages in the area. In January 1914, there were eighteen Jewish workers and sixty-five Arab workers. Most of the agricultural work was done by the Arabs,30 “since the Jewish workers could not do the work.”31 In March 1914 the HaTzfira newspaper reported that in Kfar Uriya there were eighty-five workers: “Most of them are Hebrews from Petach Tiqva and Jerusalem, among them many exceptional Torah students from the best of Jerusalem who came here so as to learn and become accustomed to the work.”32 HaPoel HaTzair added that some of the Jewish workers who worked in Kfar Uriya 27 HaPoel HaTzair, December 26, 1913, 15–16; CZA, file L18/65/10, letter from Krasner to the Land of Israel Office, December 18, 1913; ibid., letter from the Land of Israel Office to Krasner, 22 Kislev 5674 (1913). 28 HaPoel HaTzair, July 31, 1914, 23–24. 29 HaPoel HaTzair, May 27, 1914, 23–24. 30 HaAchdut, 4 Tevet 5674 (1914), 24; ibid., 11 Tevet 5674 (1914), 26; HaZman, December 28, 1913, 2; ibid., January 2, 1914, 2. 31 CZA, file L18/65/13, Zagorodesky’s report on Kfar Uriya that was sent to Ruppin. 32 HaTzfira, March 3, 1914, 3.

The Agricultural Settlement Attempt in Kfar Uriya

were entirely new in the Land and were not organized through the workers’ union, and that others were “close in spirit to the manager.”33 Krasner, it seems, tried to give Kfar Uriya the characteristics of a religious settlement by hiring religious youth, apparently yeshiva students from Jerusalem, as workers. It seems that these workers lacked the national Zionist background, and in this way differed from the Second Aliyah workers. This situation, in which non-Zionist Jewish workers worked together with a large number of Arab workers, reflected Krasner’s concession on the principle of Hebrew labor (the national Zionist principle) on which the Bialystok members had planned to base their moshavah. In the middle of January 1914, Dr. Zagorodesky visited Kfar Uriya at the request of the Association.34 In his visit he recommended where to plant the different plantings and showed Krasner how to do so. From Zagorodesky’s report following his visit, it appears that the workers were building a new house for their living quarters and digging a well. Zagorodesky noted that Krasner had no knowledge of organizing and running an agricultural farm and, consequently, the work organization was not effective. This was one of the reasons for the unnecessary expenses. Zagorodesky recommended that the management of Kfar Uriya be handed over to supervision by the Land of Israel Office.35 His report also reached the Association, who therefore asked the Land of Israel Office to take on the supervision of Kfar Uriya. The Office answered that it was willing to do so, on condition that the Association accept all the Office’s principles and work approaches, amongst them Hebrew labor.36 From the sources it is not clear whether the Land of Israel Office took over the supervision of Kfar Uriya after all. In the winter of 1914, the sowing of 850 dunams of land, the planting of almond and olive trees and the digging of the well were completed. One hundred sheep were also bought so as to take advantage of the good areas for pasture that were not being used for other purposes. The rest of the

33 HaPoel HaTzair, May 24, 1914, 15–16. 34 CZA, file L18/65/7, letter from the Association to the Land of Israel Office, 12 Shvat 5674 (1914). 35 CZA, file L18/65/1, letter from the Land of Israel Office to the Association, 18 Tevet 5674 (1914); ibid., file L18/65/13, Zagorodesky’s report to Ruppin, January 19, 1914. 36 CZA, file L18/65/7, letter from the Land of Israel Office to Bialystok, 6 Adar 5674 (1914).

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sowing lands were leased to the Arabs of the area in exchange for a fifth of the crop.37 Kfar Uriya’s difficulties and problems piled on, one after the other. Already with Krasner’s arrival in October 1913 at the head of the workers group, a bitter conflict broke out with the Arab neighbors on the border between Kfar Uriya and Tzora. This conflict did not end until the beginning of the First World War, even though in March 1914 the Turks decided in favor of Kfar Uriya.38 In May 1914, there was another crisis in Kfar Uriya, when the heads of the Bialystok Association decided to fire Krasner, due to increasing criticism of his ability to manage the work in Kfar Uriya and the losses of tens of thousands of francs that he caused in a brief period of time. In solidarity, most of the workers brought by Krasner left Kfar Uriya.39 Nissan Kanterowitz, who had been the plantation supervisor on behalf of Netaim Association on its estates in Sejera, was appointed in his stead. Kanterowitz only lasted several weeks and quit following disagreements with the workers.40 In July 1914, management was given over to the farmer Koppel Wisoker and the Sapir family from the Petach Tiqva. Wisoker hired about twenty-five permanent workers and about twenty Arab day workers. The workers were primarily involved in harvesting and reaping the first crop. Some of the workers completed the buildings in the yard.41 The general atmosphere in Kfar Uriya during that period was gloomy. At the end of July 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, Berl Katznelson reported in HaPoel HaTzair: There is uncleanliness and disorder on the farm, the workers live in terrible conditions, drink dirty water, no medical aid and no thought of putting things in order. In the workers’ private life and in work there is still the particular atmosphere, the specific depression from the days of Krasner that has not yet been lifted. Most of the workers are either still new, as they have just come to the Land of Israel, or remnants from the Krasner period. 37 HaTzfira, March 3, 1914, 3; CZA, file L2/199/1, letter from the Bialystok Estate Association members who settled in Kfar Uriya to Weizmann, 6 Tammuz 5678 (1918); ibid., letter from the Land of Israel Office to the Bialystok Estate Association, November 27, 1919. 38 CZA, file L18/65/10, letter from Krasner to Tahoun, 24 Kislev 5674 (1913); ibid., letter from Krasner to Tahoun, 28 Tevet 5674 (1914); ibid., letter from the Land of Israel Office to Entebbi, 5 Adar 5674 (1914). 39 HaPoel HaTzair, May 29, 1914, 15–16; HaAchdut, 4 Sivan 5674 (1914), 29. 40 HaAchdut, 18 Sivan 5674 (1914), 62. 41 Ibid.; HaPoel HaTzair, July 17, 1914, 16; ibid., July 31, 1914, 23–24.

The Agricultural Settlement Attempt in Kfar Uriya

Understandably, in these conditions there are no workers who know how to work and are able to find work, which have any interest or need to work in Kfar Uriya.42

In the course of 1914, three of the ten families who had planned to settle Kfar Uriya came to the Land of Israel. They were sent to different moshavot to specialize in agricultural work, and with the outbreak of the war they were still there.43 During the war, Kfar Uriya’s connection with its financial sources in Bialystok was cut off. Wisoker managed the place through loans from the Land of Israel Office with the aim of maintaining what existed. At the end of the war, Kfar Uriya’s debts to the Land of Israel Office were 1,809 Egyptian lirot. Manshevitz died during the war, and the Association fell apart. In the early 1920s, seven of the members of the Association settled in Kfar Uriya but their small number made developing an organized settlement impossible. The attempt to strengthen the settlement by establishing a moshav ovdim (a cooperative agricultural settlement) met with opposition from the members of the Association who immigrated to the Land of Israel but were not in Kfar Uriya, after it became clear that the Jewish National Fund demanded that lands of Kfar Uriya be forfeited and transferred to its possession. However, at the beginning of 1922, the Settlement Department of the Zionist Executive settled eight workers there. Once again conflicts erupted between the Bialystok group and the workers, stemming from the workers’ desecration of the Sabbath and freethinking approach to religious matters. For this reason, the Zionist Executive agreed to take the workers out of Kfar Uriya at the end of the year. Shortly afterwards, the settlers of Kfar Uriya reached an agreement with the first agricultural training group of HaPoel HaMizrachi in Rishon LeZion that the group would come to Kfar Uriya. The settlers thought that since the training group consisted of religious youth, their integration into Kfar Uriya would be effortless, with the settlers and workers sharing a religious lifestyle. This was, it seemed, the only way to establish the settlement in Kfar Uriya on religious principles while maintaining the national Zionist values of Hebrew labor. And so the training program of HaPoel HaMizrachi remained in Kfar Uriya for five years—far longer than 42 HaPoel HaTzair, July 31, 1914, 23–24. 43 CZA, file L2/199/1, letter from the Bialystok Estate Association members who settled in Kfar Uriya to Weizmann, 6 Tammuz 5678 (1918).

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any other group of workers had lasted. They did so despite the economic difficulties, the differences in outlook, and the social tension between them and the settlers, which more than once led to clashes and differences of opinion. The group members’ goal was to eventually merge with the settlers and increase the number of workers in Kfar Uriya until it became a moshav ovdim. However, in the second half of 1927, realizing that the group was not going to grow, they decided to leave Kfar Uriya and move to Kfar Hassidim, which already had a small group of people from HaPoel HaMizrachi. In the bloody clashes between the Jews and the Arabs in the Land of Israel in 1929, Kfar Uriya suffered greatly, and its members from Bialystok were forced to abandon the place.44 So ended the attempt to establish a religious Zionist moshavah in Kfar Uriya.45

Conclusion In the settlement discourse in the period of the Second Aliyah, the attempt to establish a settlement in Kfar Uriya based on Orthodox religious principles and combined within national Zionist foundations, can be defined as innovative. The attempt failed, first and foremost, due to the structural factor—the achuza (estate) approach. In another text I have expanded on why the estate approach, which is based on owner absenteeism in the first years, was destined to fail, even without the ravages of the First World War. I also discussed the problem of economic organization of this approach, the drawbacks of the agricultural farm, the failings of the administrative farm, the settlement candidates’ lack of agricultural background, and the erroneous settlement and agricultural planning of the moshavot. In this case, the proximity of the war to the settlement dates in Kfar Uriya only 44 On the goings-on in Kfar Uriya from the outbreak of the First World War until the group left in 1929, see CZA, file L2/199/1, letter from the Land of Israel Office to the Association, 17 Tishrei 5675 (1914); ibid., letter from the Land of Israel Office to the Association, November 27, 1919; ibid., file J1/295, abstract of testimonies on the goings-on in Kfar Uriya in the beginning of the 1920s; Michaeli, The Agricultural Farms, 117; Netanel Katzburg, Nahalat Emunim: The Religious Settlement in the Land of Israel [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Keren Kayemet LeIsrael, 1956), 15; Haim Yair Peles, “The Agricultural Training Groups of the HaPoel HaMizrachi in the Land of Israel, 1922– 1928” [Hebrew], Shragai 2 (1985): 190–193 and the notes there. 45 In 1943, the land of Kfar Uriya was handed over to the Jewish National Fund, and in 1944 the moshav ovdim Kfar Uriya for immigrants from Kurdistan was founded. See Jewish Villages in Israel (Jerusalem: Keren Kayemet LeIsrael, 1949), 97.

The Agricultural Settlement Attempt in Kfar Uriya

hastened its failure.46 Moreover, in addition to the economic drawbacks of the estate approach in Kfar Uriya, there was also the attempt to coerce the Second Aliyah workers into a religious lifestyle. This attempt was destined to failure because of the workers’ character and their attitude to religion; this attempt also aggravated the already difficult manager-workers relationship and had negative ramifications for Kfar Uriya’s development. Religious principles could not be established with the workers of the Second Aliyah. Bringing Arab workers and yeshiva students from the cities only partially solved the problem, and it was also a move away from national principles. This decision was most certainly not satisfactory to the Association and was taken by local management for lack of other options. From the structural point of view, it was difficult to incorporate religious principles together with the national principles of Hebrew labor in a moshavah-in-progress. It seems that the attempt of those members of Bialystok Association who lived in Kfar Uriya to search for religious pioneer workers to work on their settlement was the only way to combine religious and national principles; however, this was also unsuccessful. Why, after five years, the group of religious workers left Kfar Uriya, is a topic for further clarification.

46 Katz, “The Estates Enterprise,” 140–157.

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Chapter 4

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

During the modern era, groups have organized themselves in many a variegated fashion to establish agricultural settlements in a new world. Some groups organized themselves on a common ethnic basis while others fused along the axis a common and national ideal, and others were united by their quest for identical economic objectives. The Hutterites and the Mormons who engaged (and are still active) in agricultural settlement on the American continent furnish the most familiar example of groups organized on a religious basis.1 A group that has attracted less attention worldwide is HaKibbutz HaDati, the Hebrew term for the Religious Kibbutz Movement.2 This movement commenced its settlement activity in Palestine in the 1930s and continues to operate exclusively in Israel to this day. In the beginning of the 1990s, the movement totalled about 8,100 people spread over seventeen kibbutzim.3

1 A rich literature is available for both Hutterite and Mormon settlements. Regarding Hutterite settlement see John W. Bennett, Hutterian Brethren: The Agricultural Economy and Social Organization of a Communal People (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967); Victor Peters, All Things Common: The Hutterian Way of Life (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1965). On the Mormon settlement, see C. A. Dawson, Group Settlement: Ethnic Communities in Western Canada. Vol. 7 of Canadian Frontiers of Settlement, ed. W. A. Mackintosh and W. L. G. Joerg (Toronto: Macmillan Co., 1936); John C. Lehr, “Mormon Settlement in Southern Alberta” (Unpublished MA thesis, University of Alberta, Alberta, 1971). 2 Aryei Fishman, ed., The Religious Kibbutz Movement (Jerusalem: The Religious Section of the Youth and Hehalutz Department of the Zionist Organization, 1957); idem, Judaism and Modernization on the Religious Kibbutz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 3 Publications of the Religious Kibbutz Movement Secretariat, 1992.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

The kibbutz itself originated in Palestine in about 1910 and is unique as both a cooperative and communal settlement vehicle and as a social phenomenon. The overall kibbutz movement took shape in Palestine as a socialist settlement stream, primarily after the First World War. Various nuances began maturing within it as each separate kibbutz movement emphasized its own particular ideological and practical settlement character. Despite the differences between them, until the end of the 1930s all the kibbutz movements were secular. These secular movements as well as the unique settlement form of the kibbutz in general were given much attention in the research of historians, sociologists, geographers and economists. Hundreds of studies published in various languages have over the years examined various aspects of the kibbutz and the internal metamorphoses that have occurred there.4 Scant attention has been devoted to the Religious Kibbutz Movement, a small current that developed only during the 1930s and crystallized as a movement in 1935. In 1948, when Israel’s War of Independence erupted, the Religious Kibbutz Movement totalled ten religious kibbutzim out of about 150 Jewish kibbutzim then existing in Palestine.5 What was unique about the Religious Kibbutz Movement was its duality. On the one hand, the religious Jewish pioneers erected the kibbutz as a way of life and a vehicle for realizing their socialist Weltanschauung. On the other hand, they sought to express themselves as religious Jews by fulfilling the Zionist ideals of settling the land while scrupulously observing the commandments of the Jewish religion.6 The purpose of this chapter is to reconstruct and analyze the background leading to the establishment and organization of the Religious Kibbutz Movement. It will also examine the principles of the movement’s unique settlement doctrine in theory and in practice since these principles were intended to allow the Religious Kibbutz Movement to function as a full-fledged kibbutz movement while strictly obeying Jewish Law. This chapter relies chiefly on primary sources from the archives of the Religious Kibbutz Movement and can be subdivided into four sections. The first covers the establishment of the Religious Kibbutz Movement 4 See Erik Cohen, Bibliography of the Kibbutz (Givat Haviva: U.S. distributors: Americans for Progressive Israel, 1964). 5 Alex Bein, Immigration and Settlement in the State of Israel [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1982), 262–295. 6 Moshe Unna, “The Religious Kibbutz,” in The Book of Religious Zionism [Hebrew], ed. Yitzchak Rafael and Shlomo Zalman Shragai, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1977), 160–164.

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and the beginning of its involvement in pioneer settlement; the second section analyzes the movement’s cardinal principle of settlement in blocks and ascertains how this principle functioned in practice; the third section explores the manner in which observance of religious commandments found expression in the settlement activity of the Religious Kibbutz Movement; and the fourth section deals with the web of relationships between the religious kibbutzim and the non-religious settlement environment. The time frame of this chapter essentially begins in the early 1930s, when the Religious Kibbutz Movement took shape, and ends in 1948, when the War of Independence erupted. This war liquidated half of the kibbutzim affiliated to the Religious Kibbutz Movement and retarded the activity of the movement for a long period.

The establishment of the Religious Kibbutz Movement The Religious Kibbutz Movement emerged when groups of religious Jewish pioneers who wanted to live within a religious kibbutz framework in Palestine began immigrating in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Not a single religious kibbutz existed at the time. The first of the proto-kibbutz groups was called the Rudges Group. Rudges was the place in Germany from which this group arrived, and where members had already pursued agricultural training in anticipation of settlement in Palestine. Additional religious groups arrived from Central and Eastern Europe, and following the example of the Rudges Group they settled near one of the large moshavot in the center of Palestine and employed themselves as hired laborers. They sought to exploit this interim period to establish a communal lifestyle in the moshavot while they honed their agricultural proficiency. This temporary residence near large moshavot was characteristic of all the pioneering groups, secular and religious alike. It constituted a preparatory step to build group cohesiveness and technical proficiency before the groups went on to establish independent kibbutzim in various locations throughout Palestine.7 At the beginning of the 1930s, no real link existed between the various religious groups, but they all adhered at the time to a pioneering labor organization, HaPoel HaMizrachi, a religious Zionist labor organization 7 Meir Orlian, The Religious Kibbutz and Its Development [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: HaKibbutz HaDati, 1946), 34–35; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 146–151.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

established in Palestine in 1921. This movement united religious workers in town and village. HaPoel HaMizrachi’s objective, enunciated upon its establishment, was “to unite . . . all Jewish workers and laborers who lived by dint of their labor without exploiting others and who wished to sustain in Palestine a social, economic and political regime that would fulfil the laws of the Torah (Jewish Law) and the objectives of the prophets.”8 Pursuant to this goal, HaPoel HaMizrachi had to concern itself with every settlement, economic and cultural activity pertinent to religious workers in Palestine if it was to meet its aspiration of building a society of religious workers in Palestine.9 A special unit within HaPoel HaMizrachi was the Agricultural Center, entrusted with the implementation of the settlement by the various groups connected with HaPoel HaMizrachi.10 Until 1935, HaPoel HaMizrachi established five moshavim but not a single kibbutz.11 The adhesion to HaPoel HaMizrachi of religious groups that intended to establish religious kibbutzim reinforced the ties between them and appears to have paved the way for the establishment of an organizational framework embracing all religious kibbutz-oriented groups, a development that they all desired. In the years 1932–1934 various attempts were made to unite these groups, but to no avail. The Seventh Congress of HaPoel HaMizrachi, in 1935, attended by representatives of these groups, constituted a fitting opportunity to push forward the general organizational scheme. During this congress, the representatives of the groups agreed on the establishment of an umbrella organization framework. It was further agreed to add the message of the religious kibbutz group to the congress agenda along with the demand for a militant pioneering line and greater doctrinal consistency in the activities of HaPoel HaMizrachi. The movement would display consistency by chinuch l’hagshama—inculcating to each member the importance of putting ideology into practice, extending preference 8 CZA, file KKL5/7654, the HaPoel HaMizrachi Federation in Palestine, Survey, Tel Aviv, June 1937. 9 Ibid. 10 Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 140–144. 11 There are a few types of moshavim. Basically, a kibbutz is a collective community. In a moshav, each household is an independent economic unit while production and marketing are collective. CZA, file KKL5/7654, the HaPoel HaMizrachi Federation in Palestine, Survey, Tel Aviv, June 1937; Michael Hazani, From Sde Yaakov to Tirat Zvi: Review of the HaPoel HaMizrachi’s Settlement in Palestine [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: HaPoel HaMizrachi Agricultural Center, 1938), 34–36.

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to kibbutz-targeted immigration and rendering tangible assistance to the activities of the proto-kibbutz nuclei. A short period after the congress, at the beginning of 1935, the umbrella framework of the religious kibbutzim, uniting those who sought to settle on religious kibbutzim, was established. The organization was initially called the Kibbutz Association of HaPoel HaMizrachi and subsequently became the Religious Kibbutz Movement. The Rudges Group, which was living near the large Moshavah Petach Tiqva north of the port city of Jaffa, became the center of the Religious Kibbutz Movement and this group was to prove the animating spirit within the movement throughout that entire period. Rudges was the first group able to put its pioneering ideas into practice when it established the first religious kibbutz in Palestine.12 A short while after the establishment of the Religious Kibbutz Movement, there was a growing feeling within the Rudges Group that it should move from Petach Tiqva and establish an independent kibbutz in another region. There were ideological and practical reasons for this. The group’s aspiration to realize its pioneering objectives in building the Land of Israel supplied the ideological reason. Aharon Nahlon, one of the central figures in the group and the person who shaped its settlement policy, wrote the following: It is clear that a religious pioneering youth movement is not worthy of its name as long as it has not proven its mettle in actually building the country and establishing new points of settlement. It must erect kibbutz economies that are self-sustaining and support their workers without relying on hired help and without being exploited by others. A pioneering religious youth movement cannot exist without a living and concrete example—an example that will shine as a beacon on its paths and serve as a guide to the realization of its objectives and the fulfilment of its goal to renew a Torah-guided life in all areas within the private and public domain. A kibbutz located at a settlement point that is dependent on its environment and whose members are not subject to its control but fettered to occupation sites where they serve as hired labor [in the Moshavah Petach Tiqva] cannot shape its identity and consolidate its existence in conformity with its ideas and aspirations. Since we aspire to a life of our own— a life of Torah and labor, we confront this difficulty and recognize the vital need to establish an independent 12 Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 147–148; Hazani, From Sde Yaakov to Tirat Zvi, 32; Netiva, Sivan 1934; ibid., Av 1934.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

settlement point where our kibbutz could be autonomous and constitute an economic organism in its own right. We attached special importance to the establishment of a kibbutz economy, based on a mixed agricultural economy. During this period the entire Jewish community has been afflicted with a speculative spirit. There has been excessive urban building and in the agricultural sphere a citrus orchard craze held sway that afflicted all the Zionist settlement bodies as well.13

The practical reason was the scarcity of land at the group’s settlement near Petach Tiqva, which the rapid expansion of the moshavah would only exacerbate. The land shortage resulted from land disputes, which ended with the kibbutz relinquishing half of its territory. The Rudges Group retained only 150 dunam (1 dunam = 0.25 acre).14 This was a very small area, especially in view of the fact that during the years 1930–1935 the group served as a destination for immigrants from Germany who sought a religious kibbutz lifestyle. As a result, from 1933 the population of the group nearly doubled and in 1935 totalled 120 people.15 At that time, the Moshavah Petach Tiqva expanded further and further in the direction of the area of the group. Petach Tiqva was already at advanced stages of urbanization and threatened to swallow the settlement point of the kibbutz in the making.16 This spatial development exacerbated already the group’s existing fears to the effect that “propinquity to a large moshavah would not permit the establishment of a spiritual lifestyle befitting kibbutz society to which we aspired.”17 Many members therefore believed that the group had to uproot itself from the moshavah and allow the members to be together in an agricultural settlement far from the city or from the moshavah. The

13 Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, Aharon Nahlon, “The Story of Our Settlement in the Beit Shean Valley,” Baalot HaNoar 4 (September 1937). 14 Kibbutz Yavne Archives, file 2–35, memorandum from the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi to the Jewish Agency Settlement Department, June 7, 1946. 15 CZA, file S15/1248, letter from Stern, director of the Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency, to the Head Office of Keren Hayesod, May 6, 1934; memorandum from the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 147. 16 Tirat Zvi Archives, Kvutzatenu, November 20, 1936. 17 Forty Years to Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu: 1939–1979 [Hebrew] (Sde Eliyahu: Sde Eliyahu, 1979), 22; Tirat Zvi Archives, Kvutzatenu, November 6, 1936.

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individual efforts could be turned inwards to uplift the quality of life and to deepen the cultural and social roots.18 These ideological and practical reasons induced the Rudges Group, the Religious Kibbutz Movement and the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi to approach the settlement bodies of the World Zionist Organization: the Jewish Agency, which was responsible for planning, implementing and funding settlement activities; and the Jewish National Fund, which was in charge of purchasing lands. These bodies were asked to settle Rudges as a religious kibbutz in the Beit Shean Valley—an area located in both the physical and political periphery of north-east Palestine. At that time, the settlement bodies of the Zionist Organization were intent on purchasing lands in the Beit Shean Valley and establishing the initial kibbutzim in that area (these were non-religious kibbutzim). In general, the bodies of the Zionist Organization were entrusted with the settlement of kibbutzim and moshavim in Palestine; it was out of the question for Rudges to settle independently or solely via the assistance of the Religious Kibbutz Movement and HaPoel HaMizrachi.19 The Rudges Group and the Religious Kibbutz Movement did not choose the Beit Shean Valley as the initial settlement objective solely because the Jewish National Fund was then intensively engaged in purchasing lands in the region or because it shared the Jewish Agency’s aim to settle the entire area. Additional reasons were more central in this choice. First of all, the Beit Shean Valley met the movement’s objectives of establishing pioneering settlements since it was considered a physical and political frontier and the settlement bodies of the World Zionist Organization were keenly interested in settling it. In this way, the Religious Kibbutz Movement could prove to itself and to the other kibbutz movements that it could make its contribution towards pioneering Zionism and building the Land of Israel. Secondly, in the Beit Shean Valley one could establish the mixed economy to which the Rudges Group aspired.20 The third reason was that the Beit Shean Valley 18 Moshe Krone, From Rodges to Yavneh (London: Bachad Fellowship and Bnei Akiva, 1945), 34–35. 19 Forty Years to Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, 22; Aharon Nahlon, interview, Sde Eliyahu, July 17, 1991; CZA, file S55/84, memorandum of the Department of Settlement of the Jewish Agency, “Details about the groups, organizations and kibbutzim on the waiting list for settlement and land areas that enter into consideration for settlement,” July 1935; Kibbutz Yavne Archives, Kvutzatenu, January 10, 1936. 20 See above, note 13; Kibbutz Yavne Archives, Kvutzatenu, November 6, 1936.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

afforded the possibility of establishing not only a single religious kibbutz but a block of at least three religious kibbutzim. The principle of establishing homogeneous blocks of religious kibbutzim was determined by the Religious Kibbutz Movement at that time.21 Other locations that the Rudges Group examined as alternative settlement points did not permit the block settlement of additional religious kibbutzim in the vicinity.22 Eventually, following many efforts that inter alia involved struggles with the other kibbutz movements over the option to settle the Beit Shean Valley, the Jewish National Fund agreed to settle the Rudges Group in the south of the Beit Shean Valley.23 It also sanctioned the settlement in that same region of a further two religious kibbutzim affiliated with the Religious Kibbutz Movement.24 In 1937 the Rudges Group settled in the south of the Beit Shean Valley and established the first religious kibbutz in Palestine, called Tirat Zvi (tirah means “castle”; Zvi was the first name of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalisher, a nineteenth-century forerunner of the Zionist Movement). Two years later, the second religious kibbutz called Sde Eliyahu (sde is “field”; Eilyahu was the first name of Rabbi Guttmacher, also a nineteenthcentury forerunner of Zionism) was established. Finally, in 1946 the first settlement block of the Religious Kibbutz Movement was completed with the establishment of kibbutz Ein HaNatziv (ein means “spring”; HaNatziv is 21 See below. 22 See above, note 13; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 152. 23 Tirat Zvi Archives, Aliyah Day file B, the plan to settle at Zara (south Beit Shean Valley), June 20, 1937; Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, History of Tirat Zvi file, diary of Rudges, March 30, 1937; Tirat Zvi Archives, Aliyah Day file B, newsletter to members, April 6, 1937. 24 CZA, file KKL5/9916, minutes of the joint conference between the Jewish National Fund and the Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency, the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi and the Religious Kibbutz Movement, May 1, 1938; Tirat Zvi Archives, BaTira, April 15, 1938; Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file H–1; the Religious Kibbutz Movement Secretariat, Information Brochure, protocols of the meetings of the Religious Kibbutz Movement Secretariat, April 18–19, 1938; Raanan Weitz, interview, July 23, 1991, February 10, 1992; CZA, file S15/3113, summary of the joint meeting between the Settlement Department and the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi, October 25, 1938; Labor Movement Archives, Section 235 IV, file 1342, protocol of the conference between representatives of the Jewish National Fund, the Settlement and Planning Department of the Jewish Agency, the Agricultural Center of the General Workers Confederation and the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi, June 30, 1941.

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the acronym of Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, one of the most venerated rabbis in Eastern Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth century and a leader of the Chovevei Zion Movement, which originated in 1882). This third kibbutz was located in the Beit Shean Valley as well.25

The block settlement policy and its implementation The block settlement policy of the Religious Kibbutz Movement crystallized even before the Rudges Group settled in the Beit Shean Valley. The import of this policy was “to direct our settlement policy activity in such a fashion that our groups will not settle in a haphazard manner in a place that was more or less suitable from an economic standpoint but the direction was that the groups should go only to such a settlement location where there was a possibility and prospects that one could establish in a contiguous area additional kibbutzim of our movement.”26 Subsequently this policy would be adopted by the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi in the framework of its activities to settle the settlements of HaPoel HaMizrachi, moshavim and kibbutzim alike.27 A combination of factors, both ideological and practical, led to the formulation of the block settlement policy of the Religious Kibbutz Movement. The first factor was their goal to counteract the influence of the secular environment on the religious kibbutzim. This objective could not be achieved if the isolated religious kibbutz settled in a non-religious environment. Such an environment could exert a harmful influence from a religious and social standpoint on the isolated religious kibbutz. The children and youth whom the Religious Kibbutz Movement sought to educate in the spirit of the religious commandments and Jewish traditions were deemed especially vulnerable. Economic, functional as well as security considerations prompted dense Jewish settlement on lands purchased by the Jewish National Fund (in order to prevent the Arabs from reoccupying them). One could not establish new settlements in geographic isolation and 25 Katzburg, Nahalat Emunim, 47–56, 71–74. 26 Kibbutz Yavne Archives, Kvutzatenu, August 21, 1936; Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, protocols of the First Council of The Religious Kibbutz Movement, August 23–24, 1936. 27 CZA, file S15/9946, decisions adopted by the Agricultural Council of HaPoel HaMizrachi on November 20–21, 1940; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 124–125, 136; Hazani, From Sde Yaakov to Tirat Zvi.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

it was necessary to ensure that kibbutzim to be established in the vicinity of the initial religious kibbutz would also be religious.28 The second factor was the necessity of soundly functioning religious and educational institutions. The establishment and maintenance of religious institutions, especially religious educational institutions, were an imperative unique to religious settlement irrespective of its size. It was inconceivable to send a child from a religious kibbutz to a school located in a secular kibbutz that did not impart to its students any religious educational content. In certain kibbutz streams the kibbutz school even conveyed an anti-religious educations spirit and message. On the other hand, the establishment and upkeep of educational institutions were beyond the capacity of an isolated religious kibbutz. Cooperation with neighboring religious kibbutzim was vital, allowing economies of scale and reducing the expenses incurred by each community. This was especially important given the decision of the Religious Kibbutz Movement to prefer, for social and ideological reasons, relatively small religious kibbutzim with no more than sixty to seventy families per kibbutz. A kibbutz of this size could not cope with the establishment and upkeep of educational religious institutions which by their very nature demanded vast outlays. Only cooperation could make it economically feasible.29 The third consideration was the struggle to create a religious kibbutz lifestyle and cultural values. The shaping of cultural values, a pervasive spiritual life, and especially a distinct religious kibbutz lifestyle, could not be achieved by an isolated religious kibbutz, particularly given its relatively small size. On the other hand, if one planned the kibbutzim to be near each other, then the kibbutzim would extend mutual support in cultural activity and the creation of a unique religious kibbutz lifestyle. They could collaborate in determining the form and nature of festival observance since the Jewish festivals had originally

28 Protocols of the First Council of The Religious Kibbutz Movement; Tirat Zvi Archives, Kvutzatenu, May 26, 1936, November 6, 1936; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 124 and 136; Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file 8–4, protocol of the Expanded Secretariat of the Religious Kibbutz Movement, June 23–24, 1936; Fishman, Judaism and Modernization, 88–91. 29 Protocols of the First Council of The Religious Kibbutz Movement; Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file 35–212B, letter from the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi to the Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency and to the Jewish National Fund, April 1, 1938.

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been popular festivals celebrated by an agricultural nation. Pentecost was the feast of the first fruits; Tabernacles celebrated the gathering of the harvest and the symbolic drawing of water during the Simchat Beit HaShoeva [symbolizing the hope for adequate rainfall]. One cannot compare the lifestyle in one single isolated point to the lifestyle of religious kibbutzim on one contiguous block, three to four settlement points one next to the other.30

Next, in a block of several kibbutzim it was possible for a veteran kibbutz to assist a new one and so create a regional organization. When the Rudges Group and the Religious Kibbutz Movement attempted to settle the Beit Shean Valley, efforts that included the dispatch of an advance unit from the group to settle the area temporarily and “establish a presence,” they both became aware of the important assistance that a new kibbutz in the region could receive from a veteran kibbutz. They observed how helpful the veteran secular kibbutzim in the Eastern Jezreel Valley were to the first kibbutzim of their own movement who settled the Western Beit Shean Valley. In addition, the settlements of Eastern Jezreel Valley were organized within a common organizational framework that was initiated by these very same kibbutzim (The Harod Block Committee) and that dealt with municipal, security, health, and even economic matters. Similar organizations operated in other locations in Palestine. In view of the above, it was evident to the Religious Kibbutz Movement that there was a pressing need to establish kibbutzim in a single block to allow the veteran kibbutz to assist the newcomer and impart the benefit of its experience. Similarly the Religious Kibbutz Movement also sought to establish a regional organizational framework to unite the religious kibbutzim and promote their own unique but common interests.31 The leaders of the Religious Kibbutz Movement noted the importance of having a veteran kibbutz assist a younger one: We experienced difficulty when we sent units to the Beit Shean Valley since there was no one on whom we could rely at the location. This was not the case with the other settlement groups who enjoyed the assistance of nearby kibbutzim in their conquest of the area. It is therefore clear that, if we are to dispatch a kibbutz to a settlement point, we should ensure that the 30 Protocols of the First Council of The Religious Kibbutz Movement. 31 Ibid.; Kibbutz Yavne Archives, Kvutzatenu, February 28, 1936, August 21, 1936; Tirat Zvi Archives, Aliyah Day file B, report on the visit by Chanoch Gerstein to the unit undergoing training at Beit Alfa, May 22, 1937; Forty Years to Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, 24.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

experience of one kibbutz in settling the area will rebound to the benefit of another kibbutz that will settle in the vicinity of the former kibbutz. It will be much easier to secure a foothold in the area by virtue of that process.32

Furthermore, the Religious Kibbutz Movement assumed that it would be possible to fulfill its ideological role and realize its general objectives of settling and building the Land of Israel pursuant to the socio-religious doctrine of the movement only within the context of a block of religious kibbutzim. The isolated religious kibbutz could not shoulder this burden. The movement’s leaders at that time, Aharon Nahlon and Moshe Unna, expanded on this theme with Nahlon contending: Our activity hitherto relative to the action that still remains can be compared to the relationship between a single wall vis-à-vis the four walls of a house. We must establish a house with four walls. Our responsibility is all the greater because in our settlement block the unique features will be even more prominent than they are in our isolated settlement points. . . .33 By establishing our own block, we can create and nurture those settlement, economic and administrative talents that are latent within us but that cannot shine through and be put into play because we lack a suitable field of operation for them. We have stated that we would fail in our role of building and settling the Land of Israel if we did not develop these forces and did not assume these posts. . . .34 In such a fashion we will demonstrate both to our children and to our neighbors our role and capability in the full tasks of building the Land of Israel and we will no longer be dependent on others in matters great or small.35

Moshe Unna was similarly aware of the unique task and role that fell to the Religious Kibbutz Movement in fulfilling the independent settlement drive of the religious community, and this task could be realized only within the framework of block settlement. Unna, however, also saw matters in a broader perspective. The Religious Kibbutz Movement had innovated by establishing an independent method and by attempting to acquire for the religious pioneer complete control over the Jewish settlement project in 32 Kibbutz Yavne Archives, Kvutzatenu, August 21, 1936. 33 Alonim, September 25, 1938, 2. 34 Tirat Zvi Archives, correspondence file, 1937–1938, protocol of the Religious Kibbutz Movement Secretariat, December 6, 1938. 35 Forty Years to Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, 24; Aharon Nahlon, interview, July 17, 1991.

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Palestine. In this respect, it had surpassed both the religious moshavim and HaPoel HaMizrachi. Unna argued as follows: What is the underlying meaning of the block settlement idea, which arose and germinated within the kibbutz movement? It is the desire to provide a comprehensive expression to their [the movement’s] deep-seated aspirations by creating their own unique framework, to give concrete form to the abstract idea of the religious kibbutz. The development of the religious kibbutz coupled with a dispassionate appraisal of ultra-Orthodox Judaism have demonstrated what are the sources of the sterility that epitomizes contemporary ultra-Orthodox Jewry. The sterility stems from a reluctance to take responsibility for decisions on any fundamental issue and the absence of a religious community that stands on its own two feet, abstains from living a parasitic life in whatever realm, and is not dependent in the religious realm [on a non-Jew who performs labor on the Sabbath] or in the social, public or political sphere. This deficiency must be corrected by the emergence of a community that will develop self-sufficiency and will not have to poach from someone else’s domain to satisfy its wants. The Religious Kibbutz Movement has assumed the obligation to create such a community and to create a lifestyle for it that inexorably places that public on the path to independence and will allow it to confront all the problems that an independent community must resolve. For this task one isolated kibbutz, even a most sizeable one, would not suffice. For such a community would always be inward looking and it could not succeed in developing and embracing a public sensitivity. Only an association of communities with interconnecting economic, public and cultural activities could create the necessary base. Amidst this extensive cooperation, blinkered group selfishness would be retarded and the development of a more inclusive sense of responsibility could flourish. Such a community could serve as a seed-bed for this approach and for those forces that are vitally needed to solve the problem of an Orthodox Jewry that has returned to the Land of Israel and presently hopes to construct that land according to the principles of the Torah and assume full responsibility towards the task that has fallen to it.36

36 Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu Archives, Unna Archive, internal articles and letters edited by Unna, “Our Kibbutz in the Settlement and Youth Movement,” April 23, 1939; Moshe Unna, The New Community: Studies in the Ideology of the Religious Kibbutz [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1985), 80–81.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

At the First Conference of the Religious Kibbutz Movement, which convened in summer 1936, its policy to settle exclusively in blocks was ratified. Nonetheless, doubts were raised during the deliberations of the conference about whether this principle could be realized in practice. The realization of this policy did not depend solely on the Religious Kibbutz Movement but on the settlement bodies of the World Zionist Organization and especially on the Jewish National Fund, which was responsible for land allocation. Speakers at the conference voiced their apprehension that even if the Zionist Organization bodies were to recognize the right of the Religious Kibbutz Movement to block settlement, the objective difficulties posed by existing land shortages to Jewish settlement in Palestine in general would thwart the implementation of the idea. Too stubborn an insistence on the implementation of block settlement under any condition could effectively prevent the movement from implementing any settlement action whatsoever. One therefore had to maintain a flexible approach in framing the resolution concerning a block settlement policy. This flexibility found expression in the recognition that in addition to the need to coordinate policy with the bodies of the Zionist Organization and receive official approval in principle of the Religious Kibbutz Movement’s right to block settlement, one should not turn this right into a precondition for settlement. The Religious Kibbutz Movement would not insist in advance on receiving a contiguous area from the Jewish National Fund, which would be sufficiently large to settle a number of kibbutzim, but would insure itself by targeting for settlement only those areas that offered prospects for future territorial expansion. This would be augmented by vigorous lobbying of the Jewish National Fund to secure a promise that additional settlement points of the Religious Kibbutz Movement would be established on the adjacent areas that would be purchased in the future. The Religious Kibbutz Movement’s Council adopted at its first session a decision regarding block settlement in this vein but incorporated “levels of latitude” that made allowance for degrees of flexibility. According to the decision, “settlement in blocks, in a contiguous area that left open the possibility of settling a series of points, is the desired path . . . for the movement. The movement would approach the settlement bodies with a request that they grant us this form of settlement and would operate in this direction in the settlement field.”37 37 See above, note 30.

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From summer 1936 until the present time, block settlement became an essential principle in the Religious Kibbutz Movement settlement planning and to a large extent influenced the deployment of its kibbutzim. No other kibbutz stream enunciated a similar principle. The term “block” was defined already in the 1930s to be a minimum of three kibbutzim. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Religious Kibbutz Movement did not rule out the option of establishing a “mixed block”—a block of religious kibbutzim and moshavim. Nonetheless, conditions dictated that a mixed block would comprise a large number of settlements and the kibbutzim would be the dominant mode of settlement in each block. In practice the Religious Kibbutz Movement prior to the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1948 established three blocks, each composed of three religious Kibbutzim.38 The first block, as already mentioned, was established in the Beit Shean Valley, and the second in the Hebron hills (Kfar Etzion, Massuot Yitzchak, and Ein Tzurim). The third was established in the northern Negev (Beerot Yitzchak, Kfar Darom, and Saad). Likewise, by establishing an additional kibbutz, Yavne, in the southern plain, the Religious Kibbutz Movement laid the foundation for the establishment of an additional block, which was however completed only following the War of Independence. When the Religious Kibbutz Movement delineated its block settlement policy in summer 1936, it did not at the same time decide upon the creation of an obligatory umbrella framework that would regulate the ties between the religious kibbutzim within the block. In practice, even by 1948, no such framework had been decided upon. Nevertheless, the intention was to organize cooperation in economic, cultural, and educational matters, and such cooperation constituted a precondition for implementing the ideological goals of block settlement.39 A draft proposal for the bylaws of the Religious Kibbutz Movement, apparently written in 1940, included the following: “It was obligatory for the kibbutzim participating in a single block to create to the maximum extent joint supply and production facilities and likewise create the possibility for centralized purchase and sales.”40 38 Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file 86–548, protocol of the meeting of the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi, March 1, 1940; ibid., file 85–560, protocol of the meeting of the Religious Kibbutz Movement Secretariat, May 27, 1940; Tirat Zvi Archives, correspondence file, July 1940–August 1941, draft proposal on the Religious Kibbutz Movement bylaws. 39 Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 152. 40 Tirat Zvi Archives, correspondence file, July 1940–August 1941, draft proposal on the Religious Kibbutz Movement bylaws.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

Jewish Law observance in the religious kibbutz The observance of Jewish Law (Halakha) and tradition in the religious kibbutzim in the spirit of Orthodox Judaism is what in effect distinguishes (and also differentiates today) the Religious Kibbutz Movement from the secular kibbutz movements. In terms of its commitment to realizing national Zionist goals and fulfilling social and socialistic objectives, the Religious Kibbutz Movement viewed itself as on a par with the other kibbutz movements.41 We will now examine various aspects of the religious kibbutz settlement process where the respectful attitude towards Jewish Law and tradition had an impact. The first important aspect is planning. Physical planning had to take into account two functions that were unique to the religious kibbutz and were absent in the non-religious kibbutz, namely the synagogue and the ritual bath. The first institution served as a gathering place for prayer, and the second as the site of a woman’s purification, seven days after the end of her monthly menstrual cycle. According to Jewish Law, the obligation of purification is incumbent upon every married Jewish woman at the age of fertility, but non-religious women do not observe this commandment scrupulously.42 According to Jewish Law as enunciated in the Code of Jewish Law (the Shulchan Arukh), the synagogue must be located at the “highest point of the city”. The meaning of this concept is not altogether clear from rabbinical teaching accumulated over the generations. There are rabbis who take the words literally and therefore maintain that the synagogue must be built at the highest topographical location in the town or settlement. Another rabbinical interpretation has “highest point of the city” as meaning the central location of the city from a functional standpoint.43 In any case, in a symbolic fashion the synagogue, which in the religious kibbutzim is a venue not only for prayer but for the study of Torah and religious subjects, would supplant the role of the dining room in the non-religious kibbutzim, which functioned alternatively as a site for meetings and decision-making and as the hub of the social and cultural activities of the kibbutz. In most of the 41 Unna, “The Religious Kibbutz.” 42 Hayim Halevy Donin, To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life (New York: Basic Books, 1972), 126–127. 43 For details see Chapter 1; Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file 11 (9) 972.16 [296], letter from Rabbi Bar-Shaul to kibbutz Ein HaNatziv regarding the construction of a synagogue in the Kibbutz, September 14, 1959.

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religious kibbutzim, a synagogue was planned and later built in the center of the kibbutz where the dining room and other public service buildings were sited. In terms of size and height, the synagogue towered over its surroundings. Generally, the location of the synagogue and the functional center of the kibbutz coincided, because the kibbutzim that were established between 1935 and 1948 were assigned their permanent site in areas of flat terrain.44 However, kibbutz Ein HaNatziv in the Beit Shean Valley had significant topographical differences between its various parts. Therefore, it was possible to establish the synagogue in Ein HaNatziv during the 1960s in the highest topographical area of the kibbutz. The planners followed the directive of the rabbinical authority the kibbutz approached. The rabbi decided that the synagogue had to be built in the highest topographical area and the building itself had to be taller than the other buildings in the kibbutz. Thus a separation was created between the previously erected functional center, which surrounded the dining room, and the new synagogue.45 Due to the lack of funds, the majority of synagogues in the kibbutzim, while planned prior to the War of Independence, were actually built only after the war. Till then, services and religious events took place in the dining room.46 The agricultural farm in the religious settlements had to consider Jewish laws that could hamper farming operations, even if only partially. Within the religious kibbutzim it was fully understood that in case of a conflict, Jewish Law would always take priority over agricultural and economic considerations, despite the economic loss that would be incurred. One member of kibbutz Sde Eliyahu expressed the situation aptly in 1941: “A religious farm does not mean observing religion to the extent that it doesn’t disturb the farm, but a farm that is also subject to the authority of the Torah.”47 A member who belonged to the group that subsequently established Ein HaNatziv wrote on this subject in 1944: “We have to establish a total approach here. It cannot be a question of finding a permit for the prohibition. We have to find a solution rather than a permit. We 44 Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu Archives, Nivenu, November 14, 1941; ibid., file 1N, report of Architect Ben Uri, August 19, 1940; Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file 57–356, memorandum of Architect Ben Uri on Religious Architecture in Palestine (undated); ibid., memorandum of Architect Ben Uri, “Problems of architecture and urban construction as they relate to the settlement of the Kibbutz Movement,” August 1938; Alonim 25 (September 1946): 3. 45 Letter from Rabbi Bar-Shaul to kibbutz Ein HaNatziv. 46 Alonim 25 (September 1946): 3. 47 Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu Archives, Shavuon Sde Eliyahu, April 11, 1941.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

must persevere even in those cases where a solution will impose economic loss, and may even prevent us from establishing a specific agricultural branch.”48 Thus, for example, as opposed to the secular kibbutzim, it was evident that religious kibbutzim would uphold the principle of stopping the work on the Sabbath since Jewish Law prohibits Jews from working on the Sabbath. The overall goal, however, was to seek out solutions within the framework of Jewish Law and to accept the ruling of Orthodox rabbis. Such solutions would allow the day-to-day functioning of the farm while limiting economic damage.49 The problem of milking on the Sabbath was one of the thorniest issues confronted by the religious kibbutzim. Milking is considered by Jewish Law to be an act of labor with all its ramifications, and therefore Jewish responsa for generations had prohibited milking on the Sabbath. The consideration of preventing cruelty to animals presented grounds for leniency with regards to milking, but no dispensation could be made on economic grounds. Therefore, milking was permitted on the Sabbath only by a non-Jew or by a Jew on condition that the milk would not be used, but discarded. Milking by a non-Jew, and, for all practical purposes, by an Arab worker, was also a problematic solution, given the sharp political tensions that existed at that time between Jews and Arabs, and the security risk attendant on the employment of Arab labor on Jewish farms. In other agricultural branches it was possible to absorb the loss entailed by resting on the Sabbath, but this was not the case with dairy farming. Dairy farming was an agricultural mainstay at that time, and the loss of one seventh of all dairy farming revenues would have placed the very existence of religious kibbutzim in jeopardy and cast a pall over the feasibility of involving religious Jewish pioneers in the settlement of Palestine. In other words, the corollary to be drawn from the situation was that Halakha did not allow anyone to earn a livelihood from modern agriculture in Palestine and this would in effect consign the construction of the Land of Israel to non-religious hands alone. From an ideological standpoint, it was of course difficult for the Religious Kibbutz Movement to accept this. Therefore, efforts were made to find a solution within the Halakha that would permit milking on the Sabbath. A solution was discovered only in 1942. 48 Kibbutz Ein HaNatziv Archives, Tziunim 16 (August 1944). 49 Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 137–138; Zeraim, series of articles by Yedidiah Cohen on “Problems of Jewish Law in the Kibbutz,” published in 1961.

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Distinguished and authoritative rabbis allowed Jews to milk on the Sabbath on condition that animals would be milked over organic dye and the tinted milk would be used to make cheese. In this manner, the economic loss was minimized. The definitive solution to the problem of milking on the Sabbath was discovered only following the establishment of the State of Israel when use of electronic milking machines was instituted. Work was performed not by man but by machine, a practice that was permissible according to Halakha.50 Forbidden mixtures in the orchard and in the vegetable garden were another religious issue that the religious kibbutzim had to contend with. In particular, it applied to the kibbutzim in the vicinity of the Hebron Mountains (Kfar Etzion, Massuot Yitzchak, and Ein Tzurim), which were, to a large extent, economically dependent on deciduous fruit orchards and especially plum trees. Plums were most suitable to mountain conditions but they had to be grafted on the stock of an almond, which was considered for many years to be the ideal base for plum trees in the mountain areas. However, the act of grafting two different species is prohibited by Halakha. This conflict jeopardized the very existence of religious kibbutzim that practiced agriculture in the mountain region. A proposed solution of grafting the plum onto the stock of a wild plum (an activity permitted by Jewish Law, given the kindred species) proved impractical. The rabbis to whom the problem was submitted pondered for a long time over the issue. Their solution was the fictitious sale of the lands and the plants to non-Jews, generally Arabs, who would also perform the actual grafting. In such a situation the Jewish farmer in effect does not perform the grafting of a hybrid and the planting is not technically “on his soil,” which renders the process permissible.51 This solution, which allowed the grafting of the plum with the stock of the almond, was unacceptable to most members in one

50 Peles, “The Religious Settlement Movement,” 203–207; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 137; Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu Archives, file 7N, letter from the Religious Kibbutz Movement Secretariat to Sde Eliyahu, September 14, 1942. 51 Yossi Katz, Jewish Settlement in the Hebron Mountains and the Etzion Bloc, 1940–1947 [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1992), 105–108; Alonim 13 (June 1943): 3–5; Kibbutz Kfar Etzion Archives, Shavuon, December 17, 1943, February 4, 1944; Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu Archives, Shavuon, November 19, 1946.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

of the religious kibbutzim located in the Hebron Mountains (Massuot Yitzchak):52 Our concept of the laws that are dependent upon the Land of Israel has to be more profound and serious. The Torah gave expression to the link between the observance of the laws that are dependent on the land and our tenure upon it in verses laden with rebuke and admonition. . . . The employment of subterfuges could create a particular danger precisely in a religious kibbutz society. The kibbutz framework is predicated on volunteerism and not on coercion. The spirit of volunteerism implies the joy of creative idealism. All in all, we are dealing with emotions. According to sociological research, this framework is destroyed when the ideological tension that motivates this society is weakened, and therefore an ideological question is also transposed into a social question, and a social question becomes an economic question. This relationship is an important factor that we must take into account. In our life there is a value attached to symbols and these symbols occupy an especially large place in the realm of our feelings. The symbols associated with the land and the working of the land are of seven-fold importance. The sale of the land and the seedlings to an Arab, even in a symbolic manner, leads to a deprecation of values, self-abasement, in short, to psychic selfdestruction. The rule governing the joy of creativity posits the equality of action and intention.53

The solution adopted by members of Massuot Yitzchak was to minimize the extent of the plum in the make-up of their orchard despite the losses that this would entail. Nonetheless, the planting of a restricted section of plum trees was performed in accordance with the permit of the rabbis and employing the method of fictitious sale to the Arabs.54 In a similar fashion, the settlement group Emunim, which erected kibbutz Ein HaNatziv, refused to employ the legal subterfuge solution to sow vegetable hybrids with vetch despite the economic losses that this refusal entailed.55 An additional religious question of profound agricultural-economic importance that the religious kibbutzim confronted was shemitah—the 52 Katz, Jewish Settlement in the Hebron Mountains, 206–207. 53 Yohanan Ben Yaakov, Gush Etzion: Fifty Years of Struggle and Creation [Hebrew] (Alon Shvut: Yad Shapira, 1983), 113–114. 54 Alonim 28–29 (December 1947): 15; Katz, Jewish Settlement in the Hebron Mountains, 207. 55 Kibbutz Ein HaNatziv Archives, Tziunim 16 (August 1944).

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sabbatical year. According to the Torah, a Jew residing in the Land of Israel is forbidden to work his land one year out of seven. This commandment, which does not apply to a Jew who resides abroad, applies to sowing, planting, harvesting, and other agricultural activities. It is prohibited to trade in or derive any benefit from produce that grows during the sabbatical year (even if it grows haphazardly without deliberate sowing).56 As with the problem caused by the prohibition of milking on the Sabbath, the religious kibbutzim had no option but to observe the sabbatical year. On the other hand, the strict observance of the commandment would have made their existence unviable during the sabbatical year and induced their total collapse. The religious legal solution provided by the rabbis whom the kibbutzim consulted permitted certain labors but prohibited others. The permit was essentially based on a solution that had already been adopted by the late 1880s when Jewish agricultural settlement in Palestine began, namely, the fictitious sale of kibbutzim land to the Arabs for the duration of the sabbatical year. In this way, certain agricultural activities were permitted during the sabbatical year, but others, such as fresh planting, were prohibited despite the fictitious sale to the Arabs. In any case, the subterfuge solution through the fictitious sale allowed the religious kibbutzim to function, albeit in a restricted fashion, even during the sabbatical year.57 Although solutions within the framework of Jewish Orthodoxy were discovered for the problem of forbidden mixtures as well as for the sabbatical year, and although the religious kibbutzim adopted these solutions not out of economic convenience, but because they felt a sense of overall responsibility for the very existence of religious settlement in Palestine, a sense of malaise persisted.58 For many years religious kibbutzim felt uneasy with solutions that essentially depended on subterfuge and they aspired to find direct solutions, as witnessed when Massuot Yitzchak confronted 56 Tucazinsky, The Book of the Sabbatical Year, 59–66. See also Chapter 1. 57 Zeraim 245 (October 1961); Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file (9) 972.16 [296], Yediot HaKibbutz HaDati, August 23, 1951, June 26, 1952; ibid., Dapim, March 10, 1944; Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu Archives, Shavuon, March 17, 1944, March 23, 1944; ibid., letter from the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi to the settlements affiliated with HaPoel HaMizrachi, February 29, 1944. The September 1986 issue of Amudim is devoted to the problem of observing the sabbatical year in the religious kibbutz. 58 In the words of Unna: “It was a sense of responsibility vis-à-vis the Jewish community, which had awakened to settle its land, which prompted the various permits rather than a ‘liberal’ attitude towards the commandments, which sought to trim corners.” On this issue see Amudim (September 1986): 7. See also ibid., article by Tzuriel Admanit, 12–14.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

the issue of forbidden mixtures. Members of the kibbutzim also expressed their desire to find direct solutions to the problem of the sabbatical year. A proposal was made in 1937 to increase the proportion allocated to industry in the kibbutzim and those people who were freed from agricultural work during the sabbatical year would find employment there. Other solutions dealt with a crop rotation, adjusted to the sabbatical year, or the intensification of specific agricultural branches at the expense of others. A similar proposal advocated investing in a scientific and technological effort to discover solutions for the problem of forbidden mixtures in orchards and the vegetable gardens.59 In practice, during the time frame of this chapter and subsequently, the solution to the sabbatical year continued to rest on the spurious sale of land to the Arabs.60 However, the sense of unease in the religious kibbutz regarding permits that rested on subterfuge found expression in the refusal of the religious kibbutzim to accept a legal subterfuge in observing an additional commandment—that of orlah. This commandment, similar to the sabbatical year, also belongs to the commandments dependent on the Land of Israel. It was prohibited to eat or trade in fruit that grows on trees during the first three years after planting. Since by the third year the quantity of fruit is already substantial, the prohibition on their use inflicts economic damage. The religious legal solution that was proposed (selling to the Arabs) was not accepted by the Religious Kibbutz Movement and it was decided to terminate totally the marketing of third-year fruits.61 Furthermore, the religious kibbutzim diligently observed another commandment dependent on the land—that concerning offerings and tithes. This rules that a Jew must set aside a certain percentage of his crop for the benefit of priests and Levites who work in the Temple and for the benefit of the poor. Before the fruits have been set aside, any use of the crop, including eating and selling,

59 Netiva, Adar 1937, 2; Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file (9) 972.16 [296], Yediot HaKibbutz HaDati, April 16, 1951, June 26, 1952; Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu Archives, Shavuon, March 23, 1944; Tirat Zvi Archives, BaTira, February 25, 1938; ibid., the Religious Kibbutz Movement file, 1936–1939, material for ideological clarification, March 1938. 60 Amudim (September 1986), the issue devoted to the problem of observing the sabbatical year in the religious kibbutz. 61 Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file (9) 972.16 [296], report from the meeting of the Committee on Religious Affairs, published in Yediot HaKibbutz HaDati, June 26, 1952. See also note 62 below.

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is prohibited. This obligation remained in effect after the Temple had been destroyed and amounts to the forfeit of one percent of one’s crop.62 Another important characteristic of the religious kibbutzim was their commitment to religious culture and substance. These found expression (then as now) in various areas. Only religious members were accepted into the kibbutzim and the membership of those who ceased to observe the commandments was terminated. Birth control on any grounds not related to health was rejected (including that of economic distress). An array of religious courses was taught by members of the kibbutzim and by visiting instructors. Seminars were conducted and members were seconded to supplementary courses on religious matters, in institutes and yeshivas. The distinction between Sabbath and festivals and the week days was quite considerable. The former were devoted, as is customary within Orthodox Jewry, to prayer, Torah study, and rest, clothing was festive and only permitted labors were performed. Even security duty on Sabbath and festivals was carried out in a manner that did not violate the Sabbath or festival. In the religious kibbutzim, ancient Jewish religious ceremonies were renewed, such as dedication of the vine, the setting aside publicly of offerings and tithes, the first shearings, the barley harvest, and lighting beacons on mountain tops to herald the new month. Religious committees were established within the individual kibbutzim and within the Religious Kibbutz Movement Secretariat with a view to provide religious legal counselling on agricultural and social questions and to promote a religious culture.63

62 Compare Yedidiah Cohen, “Problems of Jewish Law in the Kibbutz—Commandments Dependent on the Land of Israel,” Zeraim 245 (October 1961). 63 Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 137–139, 153; The Land of Israel and its Religious Life (Autumn 1947); Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, file 15 (9) 972.16 [296], various documents regarding religious matters; ibid., News from the Secretariat, December 1947; ibid., file 7 (9) 972.16 [296], report from the meeting of the Commission to Clarify Religious Matters, May 8, 1938; ibid., bylaws of the Religious Kibbutz Movement; Alonim (November–December 1947): 35–36; CZA, file S51/119, letter from the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi to the Executive of the HaTorah Project, regarding the establishment of the special institute to deal with issues pertaining to agriculture and settlement in Palestine; Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, Dapim, August 25, 1939; Kibbutz Ein HaNatziv Archives, protocols of kibbutz meetings and discussions, informal discussion on “birth-related issues,” August 23, 1944.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

Relationships of the religious kibbutzim with the non-religious settlement environment As we have noted, the Religious Kibbutz Movement established three blocks of settlement prior to the 1948 War of Independence. The block established in the south was erected very close to the outbreak of the War of Independence whereas the settlements of the block established in the Hebron Hills were on eve of the War of Independence almost the only communities existing in the region. Therefore, the only location where one can examine in a clear fashion the framework of relationships between the religious kibbutzim and the non-religious kibbutzim is the Beit Shean Valley. The religious block of kibbutzim there was completed in 1946, but the major portion of it already existed in 1939.64 Despite the polar differences between the religious kibbutzim in the Beit Shean Valley and the non-religious kibbutzim in their attitude towards religion, the day-to-day relationship between the religious and the non-religious settlements was quite positive. Some of the non-religious kibbutzim were established before the religious kibbutzim and they served as training centers for the religious kibbutzim in various areas, especially when the latter settled on the land.65 Once settled, the religious kibbutzim used the cooperative and economic networks of all the kibbutzim in the Beit Shean Valley. These frameworks, on the one hand, handled the functional areas of security, taxation, relations with the authorities, health, transportation, and so forth. On the other hand, they tackled various economic issues. The religious kibbutzim could not dispense with the advantages that accrued from cooperation. First and foremost, the need to guarantee their very existence compelled them to attach importance to pragmatic material considerations. This was especially true since there was no corresponding network of religious movements that could provide the kind of benefits derived from the non-religious environment. This point was driven home when 64 Dov Nir, The Beit Shean Region [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1967), 134. 65 Kibbutz Yavne Archives, Kvutzatenu, December 13, 1935; report on the visit by Chanoch Gerstein; CZA, file S15/1250, letter from Harzfeld to the Rudges Group, June 14, 1937; Tirat Zvi Archives, Aliyah Day file A, letter from the Agricultural Center of the General Workers Confederation to the Harod Bloc Committee and to all the non-religious kibbutzim in the Beit Shean Valley and Eastern Jezreel Valley, June 25, 1937; the Institute for the Study of Religious Zionism Archives, protocol of a joint session of the Executive Committee of HaPoel HaMizrachi and the Religious Kibbutz Movement, June 13, 1938.

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it emerged that cooperation exclusively between the religious kibbutzim (since there were only three at most) was not as beneficial as cooperation with all the kibbutzim in the Beit Shean Valley. This was not only because economies of scale resulted but because the non-religious kibbutzim were affiliated to an umbrella movement (the General Labor Confederation), which was very well organized, had at its disposal economic and financial institutions and carried weight with the Zionist organizations.66 The development of cooperation ties with the non-religious kibbutzim, provided certain conditions were maintained, did not contravene the ethical outlook of the religious kibbutzim, quite the contrary. The religious kibbutzim possessed an unambiguously socialist orientation that compelled them to cement ties with the Zionist Labor Movement in Palestine:67 “In all the labor issues, we have to make common cause with them despite differences in concept and outlook. We adopt a joint stance on most of the political and public questions on the agenda.”68 Furthermore, the Religious Kibbutz Movement believed that only via cooperation and ties with national-minded secular Jewry could one hope to realize national goals in Palestine in general as well as the aspiration of the Religious Kibbutz Movement to exert a religious influence on the Zionist-minded community in Palestine.69 Cooperation with the non-religious kibbutzim was therefore intended to secure an additional objective of the Religious Kibbutz Movement— the ethical goal of imparting religious values to the non-religious kibbutz environment. To this end the religious kibbutzim had to sacrifice to some extent another ethical value—“building the four-walled house”—which was implicit in the block settlement policy of the movement. Religious influence was to be attained in two principal spheres. Firstly, cooperation would prevent the conduct of activities prohibited on the Sabbath by Jewish Law in all municipal and economic institutions that involved both religious and non-religious kibbutzim. Secondly, the joint economic ventures would 66 Tirat Zvi Archives, BaTira, February 18, 1938, May 20, 1938, March 25, 1939; ibid., Dapim, October 16, 1942; Alonim 9 (September 1942): 7–8; ibid. 26–27 (September– October 1946): 24; ibid. 31 (March–April 1947): 12–14; Sde Eliyahu Archives, Unna file, internal correspondence file, letter from A. Gan El to M. Unna, June 25, 1942. 67 Fishman, Judaism and Modernization, 143–145. 68 Tirat Zvi Archives, the Religious Kibbutz Movement file, 1936–1939, material for ideological clarification, March 1938. 69 Fishman, Judaism and Modernization, 143–145.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

be barred from using and trading in foods prohibited according to Halakha. In other words, full observance of Jewish dietary laws would be assured.70 The religious kibbutzim did condition their participation in the various regional cooperation frameworks on the agreement that there would be no violations of the Sabbath and no commerce in non-kosher foods. If it became clear that this condition could not be met due to the opposition of the non-religious kibbutzim, the religious kibbutzim declared that they would not cooperate in such matters. Hence the religious kibbutzim did not participate in the regional culture committee as it conducted various cultural events in the kibbutzim that involved violation of the Sabbath.71 The reverse was the case regarding the regional purchasing organization, which served as an umbrella for cooperation in diverse economic activities. Here the religious kibbutzim managed to persuade the non-religious kibbutzim not to operate on the Sabbath and to abstain from commerce in non-kosher foods, which allowed the religious kibbutzim to participate in the organization.72

Conclusion The Religious Kibbutz Movement was (and still is) similar to the other kibbutz streams in terms of socialist and nationalist aspirations in the Land of Israel. On the other hand, it differed from them because it simultaneously sought to preserve an Orthodox religious framework within that of kibbutz life. The Religious Kibbutz Movement therefore was not a compulsory 70 Alonim 20 (April 1946): 3; ibid. 10 (October 1942): 13–14; ibid. 31 (March–April 1947): 11–14; Aharon Nahlon, interview, August 1, 1991; Tirat Zvi Archives, correspondence file, January–May 1946, letter from the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi to the kibbutzim Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliyahu, and Ein HaNatziv, June 7, 1946. In 1954, the Commission on Religious Affairs in the Religious Kibbutz Movement decided that it approved in principle the participation of the religious kibbutzim in joint enterprises with the non-religious agricultural communities of the region, “to the extent that this cooperation possesses economic or public importance or to the extent that this cooperation can prevent the violation of the Sabbath and other infringements on religious commandments.” On this matter see Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives, Yediot HaKibbutz HaDati 100 (June 1954): 15. See also Fishman, Judaism and Modernization, 143–145. 71 Tirat Zvi Archives, correspondence file, 1940–1942, letter from Tirat Zvi to the Gilboa Regional Council, July 26, 1942; ibid., Dapim, July 31, 1942. 72 Tirat Zvi Archives, correspondence file, January–May 1946, letter from the Agricultural Center of HaPoel HaMizrachi to the kibbutzim Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliyahu, and Ein HaNatziv, June 7, 1946.

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outgrowth of the Jewish religion. In this way the Religious Kibbutz Movement also differs from the Hutterite communal society, since a fully cooperative as well as agricultural lifestyle constitutes an integral part of its faith, and is hence an outgrowth of its unique religion. The establishment of the first religious kibbutzim was not anticipated by the formulation of an explicit and detailed ideology governing the framework of its existence. Ideologies and frameworks took shape in the course of experience.73 We have observed that one of the factors motivating the block settlement policy was the Religious Kibbutz Movement’s desire to build an entire region independently as a “four-walled house”. However, the Religious Kibbutz Movement participated in cooperative frameworks that included the non-religious kibbutzim and sacrificed the “four-walled house” principle in order to secure a compensatory value: religious influence over the non-religious kibbutz environment. As opposed to other kibbutz streams, the Religious Kibbutz Movement decided at the very outset of its settlement activity on an explicit geographic settlement policy of block settlement. This policy remains in force to this day. It was governed by both ethical and practical considerations, and the religious factor exerted an influence from an ethical and material standpoint in the formulation of the block settlement policy. From a territorial standpoint, the Religious Kibbutz Movement managed to implement this policy and establish three of its own blocks but it did not establish special cooperative frameworks unique to the religious kibbutzim. Nonetheless, as a result of the block settlement policy, to this day certain areas in Israel are identified socially and culturally as areas of “religious settlement” and this designation is largely due to the prominence of religious kibbutzim in those regions. This is especially true of the Etzion Block, south of Jerusalem; the Southern Beit Shean Valley and the Gilboa; the Yavne Region in the southern plain; and, to some extent, the north-west Negev. In their efforts to promote profitable agricultural settlement while observing Jewish Law, the religious kibbutzim were confronted with very difficult challenges. The dilemmas did not arise from conflicts with explicit commandments such as Sabbath observance and Jewish dietary laws. The most troublesome difficulties were caused by commandments that seemed to place the very existence of a religiously observant agricultural farm in 73 Moshe Unna, In the Paths of Contemplation and Action [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1956), 60–62.

The Religious Kibbutz Movement and Its Credo

jeopardy. The Religious Kibbutz Movement could not accept the idea that Halakha could in effect thwart Jewish settlement. Therefore it attempted to find solutions within the framework of Orthodoxy that would allow the kibbutzim economic viability without infringing Jewish Law. Although solutions were found, the movement was never fully satisfied with them and this has generated tension within the movement over the years. Even though the subterfuge device lay within the boundaries of Jewish Law, the Religious Kibbutz Movement craved more authentic methods but in the final event persevered with the “solution.” No attempt has been made within the scope of this chapter to analyze why the solutions that the Religious Kibbutz Movement pursued did not materialize. What should suffice for our understanding is that the overall “settlement landscape” conceived in the religious kibbutzim and their blocks was unique. This uniqueness was first and foremost a product of the determination to maintain a religious cohesiveness within a kibbutz settlement framework while emphasizing the role of the religious-socialist-Zionist pioneer in the national Jewish settlement project in Palestine.

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Chapter 5

HaPoel HaMizrachi Movement and Urban Religious Settlement in the Land of Israel

Residential housing patterns in cities around the world are shaped by historic, economic, political, social, and cultural factors. One of the processes that determine these patterns is clustering and segregation. In this process, population groups with similar characteristics tend to seek the company of those in their group while differentiating themselves from groups with other characteristics. The outcome of clustering and segregation of an urban population is the creation of a residential neighborhood with a population that is uniform in character and defining features. The existence of separate neighborhoods in a city will have special importance for its ethnic make-up and socio-economic image. It allows people in high income groups, for example, to separate themselves from those at the bottom, and residents of different nationalities to maintain their individuality while remaining closely knit as a group. There appears to be a high correlation between residential housing enclaves and socio-cultural uniformity in population groups. The more uniform and defined the characteristics of a given population group, the more it will conspicuously isolate itself from the rest of the population. From a spatial point of view, distinct residential neighborhoods in a city are thus the product of socio-cultural differences in the population. However,  sometimes populations separate not for

HaPoel HaMizrachi Movement and Urban Religious Settlement in the Land of Israel

socio-economic or socio-cultural reasons but to preserve their values or political goals.1 This chapter explores manifestations of separatism deriving from the pursuit of specific values and political objectives in keeping with the sociocultural characteristics of the population in question. A prime example— and the focus of this chapter—is the process by which religious Zionists separated themselves in Israeli cities, beginning with the establishment of religious neighborhoods initiated by the religious Zionist workers movement, HaPoel HaMizrachi. Different degrees of separatism already existed in the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community, although motives varied. Most obvious was the tendency of Jews and non-Jews, and secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews, to live in their own neighborhoods. In recent decades, one sees families from the national religious sector separating by moving to community settlements (yishuvim kehilati’im) and designated neighborhoods in the city. For years, farmers in the national religious community went to live on moshavim2 and homogeneous religious kibbutzim,3 although some of the workers cooperatives (moshvei ovdim) had a mixed population of religious and secular families. 1 The process of residential segregation in the urban sector has been studied quite extensively, especially by geographers and sociologists. See, for example, Louis Wirth, The Ghetto (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1925); Sarah Hershkowitz, “The Spatial Distribution of the Religious Population in Jerusalem, 1959–1969” [Hebrew], Studies in the Geography of the Land of Israel 9 (1976): 156–173; Frederick W. Boal, “Territoriality on the Shankhill-Falls Divide, Belfast,” in An Invitation to Geography, ed. David A. Lanegran and Risa Palm (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), 58–77; idem, “Segregation,” in Social Geography: Progress and Prospect, ed. Michael Pacione (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 90–128; Frank Parkin, Marxism and Class Theory: A Bourgeois Critique (London: Tavistock, 1979); Stanley Waterman and Barry A. Kosmin, “Residential Patterns and Processes: A Study of the Jews in Three London Boroughs,” Transactions 13 (1988): 79–95; Chris Philo, “De-limiting Human Geography: New Social and Cultural Perspectives,” in New Words, New Worlds: Reconceptualising Social and Cultural Geography, ed. Chris Philo (Aberystwyth: St. David’s University College, 1991), 19; Yosseph Shilhav, A “Shtetel” (Small Town) within a Modern City: A Geography of Segregation and Acceptance [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1991); Paul L. Knox, Urban Social Geography: An Introduction (London: Pearson Education, 1997). 2 See, for example, Katzburg, Nahalat Emunim. 3 Yossi Katz, The Religious Kibbutz Movement in the Land of Israel: 1930–1948 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999).

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Religious Zionist-style agricultural communities were an outgrowth of the religious moshavim and kibbutzim that began to appear in the 1920s and 1930s. Nearly all of them were affiliated with the political and organizational frameworks of HaPoel HaMizrachi, which was founded in 1921. The history of religious agricultural settlement has enjoyed some measure of scholarly attention, although the subject is far from exhausted. What is less known, if at all, is that soon after HaPoel HaMizrachi began establishing moshavim and kibbutzim4—and ultimately creating a separate niche for its pioneers in the agricultural sector—it also began to build neighborhoods in the cities for members of the movement. Establishing residential neighborhoods based on organizationalpolitical affiliation was not a new phenomenon in the landscape of prestate Israel (or other parts of the world). Before them came the “workers’ neighborhoods” built by the General Labor Movement. The first was the Borochov neighborhood in Givatayim, established in the 1920s. These neighborhoods were not built only to solve the housing problems of the urban worker. To a great extent, they were also designed to promote socialist ideology among members of the movement who chose not to join an agricultural commune. The idea was to organize the urban workers’ political, social, communal, cooperative-economic, and cultural life within the confines of a defined geographical space. The bond to the soil that was so engrained in Labor ideology was articulated, for example, by setting aside land in these neighborhoods for parks and kitchen gardens. As time went on, party-affiliated neighborhoods were established to further the ideological and political objectives of the sponsoring parties, which had now expanded to include the political right. While non-religious urban settlement in the Yishuv has been studied,5 this is not so for religious urban settlement under the wing of HaPoel HaMizrachi. This chapter seeks first of all to analyze the reasons for HaPoel HaMizrachi’s bid to create housing enclaves in the city. Was it only to enable 4 Ibid.; Yeshayahu Bernstein, A Mission and a Path: Essays and Lectures [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1956), 199–200. 5 See, for example, Iris Greitzer, “The Ideological Basis for Labor Movement Policy on Urban Settlement in 1905–1928,” Studies in the Geography of the Land of Israel 12 (1986): 120–142; idem, “Ideological Controversies in the Development of Local Government in Mandate Palestine” [Hebrew], Studies in the Geography of the Land of Israel 14 (1993): 186–205; Amiran Gonen and Shlomo Hasson, “Public Housing as a PoliticalGeographical Tool in Israeli Cities” [Hebrew], State, Government, and International Relations 18 (1981): 27–37.

HaPoel HaMizrachi Movement and Urban Religious Settlement in the Land of Israel

national religious families to live in surroundings that fit their religious lifestyle, sheltered from the secular culture around them, or were there other objectives, such as instilling values or promoting ideological and political agendas, as they worked to build up the state? Secondly, we will examine the tools used to achieve separation, and thirdly, we will analyze whether HaPoel HaMizrachi was successful in realizing one of its oldest and most important goals, namely establishing an urban foothold via neighborhoods with a homogeneous religious population of HaPoel HaMizrachi members who infuse the neighborhood with distinctive religious, social, cultural and ideological content. The time frame of the chapter is from the early 1930s, when HaPoel HaMizrachi launched its urban housing scheme, until the 1960s, when the Mishab Housing Construction & Development Company was formed and commenced operations. The findings are based mainly on archival material, memos and reports of HaPoel HaMizrachi, the newsletter it published and its organizational literature.

Religious Zionist neighborhoods: Organization and scope The establishment of religious Zionist neighborhoods began in the early 1920s, set in motion by the World Mizrachi movement, which was founded in 1902, and Mizrachi Youth, the youth division of Mizrachi. Mizrachi was the driving force behind the establishment of Bayit Vagan in Jerusalem while Mizrachi Youth established the Nahalat Bayit Company Ltd., which hoped to build urban neighborhoods and garden suburbs on the outskirts of cities for its members. In the 1920s, Nahalat Bayit founded Sanhedria in Jerusalem and made plans for similar neighborhoods in other parts of the country. Both Mizrachi and Mizrachi Youth were looking for a way to alleviate the housing shortage and create neighborhoods where their members could enjoy a religious and social life attuned to their needs.6 However, these initiatives by Mizrachi and Mizrachi Youth never gained real headway. In the early 1930s, they were supplanted by HaPoel HaMizrachi, which was rapidly establishing religious neighborhoods around the country. HaPoel HaMizrachi, formed in 1921, was a group of “national religious workers aspiring to build the Land of Israel in the spirit of Torah 6 Report of HaMizrachi Executive Committee to World Mizrachi [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, September 1926), 4–7; Dov Nathan Brinker, HaMizrachi in the Land of Israel [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: HaTor, 1925), 117–123.

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and Labor.”7 The idea of building religious neighborhoods for supporters of the movement sprang from a decision of the Central Council of HaPoel HaMizrachi in the spring of 1934 to establish a housing committee affiliated with HaPoel HaMizrachi in Tel Aviv. This was followed by the establishment of HaMerkaz LeShikun, a national housing association that would promote the movement’s residential projects. In 1938, HaMerkaz LeShikun founded Mishkenot, a company that undertook to build HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods. In 1959, Mishkenot merged with HaBoneh, founded by HaPoel HaMizrachi in 1937 to provide religious laborers with construction work. Thus Mishab (Mishkenot HaBoneh) was born, combining the two  names—a housing construction and development company that still exists today.8 The idea of a HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhood in the Haifa Bay area already came up in 1926, and talks were held with the Kehilat Zion society, which owned the land. However, this enterprise never came to fruition.9 The first plans to materialize were carried out later and fit in with the accelerated pace of immigration from 1933. This influx of newcomers, known as the Fifth Aliyah, brought with it many supporters of HaPoel HaMizrachi who preferred to stay in the city rather than join a moshav or kibbutz. The first HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods went up quickly over the course of the 1930s: in Givat Rambam near Tel Aviv on 43 dunams (1 dunam = 0.25 acre) of land; in Nahalat Yitzchak near Tel Aviv on 23 dunams; in Kiryat Shmuel in Haifa Bay on 300 dunams; in Hadera on 50 dunams; and a small neighborhood named for Rabbi Kook in West Jerusalem.10 At the end of the 1930s, when Mishkenot was founded, and throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the pace picked up. More neighborhoods were built and older ones were expanded. In effect, a neighborhood sprang up wherever there was a branch of HaPoel HaMizrachi.11 The founding 7 See Hen-Melech Merchavia, ed., Nation and Homeland: A Collection of Documents on Hebrew Citizenship, Zionism and Settlement [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Halevi Press, 1949), 426; Katz, The Religious Kibbutz Movement, 15–19. 8 S. Daniel, ed., In the Burden of Deeds: Moshe Kelmer and His Works [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Don, 1976), 127–145; HaTzofe, March 20, 1964, special supplement marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mishab (Mishkenot HaBoneh). 9 Two-Year Report: The Activity of the Executive Committee of HaPoel HaMizrachi in Eretz Yisrael [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: HaIvri Press, 1926), 54–55. 10 Report of World Mizrachi to the Fourteenth World Conference in Zurich, 19–22 Av 1937 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1937), 143–145; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 101, 180–181. 11 Netiva, Iyar–Sivan 1947, 10–11; ibid., Tishrei 1948, 2.

HaPoel HaMizrachi Movement and Urban Religious Settlement in the Land of Israel

of Mishab in 1959 gave an extra push to the establishment of HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods around the country. By the early 1960s, there were sixty-one such neighborhoods with close to 10,000 apartments. The neighborhoods were built in twenty-three cities and towns,12 among them Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, Netanya, Rishon LeZion, Petach Tiqva, Rehovot, Raanana, Magdiel, Kfar Saba, Pardes Hanna, Kfar Ata, Hadera, Bat Yam, Ramat Yitzchak, Ramat Gan, Givatayim, Haifa (Givat Shmuel), Beersheva, and Herzliya.13

Rationale for separate neighborhoods In the early 1930s, HaPoel HaMizrachi saw one of its roles as providing housing assistance to its members, be they newcomers or veteran residents. At the time, the movement did not insist on separate neighborhoods: It was accepted that members of the group could integrate in existing workers neighborhoods that had begun to be built by the Histradrut (General Organization of Workers) on lands owned by the Jewish National Fund. Soon, however, it emerged that “the neighborhood charter drawn up by the Histadrut included a ‘freedom of religion’ clause. Our members are certain that this clause will turn the neighborhood into a hotbed of quarreling and strife over religious issues in general (schooling, synagogues, etc.)

12 HaTzofe, March 20, 1964; ibid., March 12, 1964, 4. 13 Report of World Mizrachi to the Fourteenth World Conference, 143–145; Zvi Bernstein, Well Done: HaPoel HaMizrachi Celebrates Eighteen Years of Activity [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: The Mizrachi Executive Committee, 1940), 55–56; idem, Twenty-Five Years of Activity: HaPoel HaMizrachi on Its Twenty-Fifth Anniversary [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: HaTzofe Press, 1947), 21–24; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference; CZA, file KKL5/17173, letter from Mishkenot to the JNF, March 27, 1949; ibid., file KKL5/18902, letter from Mishkenot to the JNF, February 10, 1950; ibid., letter from the JNF to the General Mortgage Bank of Israel Ltd., January 2, 1951; ibid., letter from Mishkenot to the JNF, March 19, 1951; HaPoel HaMizrachi 1942–1949, Summary, Tenth Conference, Jerusalem, 7–12 Marheshvan 1950 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: n.p., 1950), 151; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years: 12 Heshvan 1950–2 Heshvan 1953, Report Submitted to the Eleventh HaPoel HaMizrachi Conference [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1953), 130; From Conference to Conference: Reports, Projects and Documents. Report Submitted to the Thirteenth Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi and the Second Conference of the National Religious Party, 27 Sivan–4 Tammuz 1963 [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: The National Religious Party, HaMizrachi-HaPoel HaMizrachi, 1963), 26–27; Netiva, Iyar 1945, 7; ibid., Tishrei 1948, 2; ibid., Heshvan 1949, 3; ibid., Elul 1950, 11; HaTzofe, March 5, 1964, 1; ibid., March 20, 1964.

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and Sabbath observance in particular.”14 In response, HaPoel HaMizrachi decided to establish its own neighborhoods where members of the movement could practice a religious lifestyle. Hence the first reason for segregation was the desire to ensure an environment conducive to religious observance where children could be brought up in the spirit of yisrael saba (“Grandfather Israel,” meaning the traditional Jewish way of life).15 Shlomo Zalman Shragai, one of the leaders of HaPoel HaMizrachi, explained at the movement’s conference in 1935: “Of course this project is not merely a housing solution but a way of imparting an aura of Torah. Only the presence of Shekhinah in our midst will ensure that it will not be sullied by the ills of city life.”16 Later, the same idea was expressed in the Executive Committee report prepared for the movement’s conference in 1953: “The delegates of HaPoel HaMizrachi will continue to battle for . . . separate housing projects for religious immigrants to enable them to preserve their way of life and educate their children as they wish, in keeping with their ideology.”17 From the second half of the 1930s, the creation of separate neighborhoods began to be seen as a tool for achieving HaPoel HaMizrachi’s fundamental goals of building up the land and laying the groundwork for a Jewish state based on Torah and the principles of Judaism and Jewish Law. After the establishment of the state, HaPoel HaMizrachi continued to embrace these goals. In a report at the end of 1952, for example, the Executive Committee emphasized that “our first and foremost objective is imposing the rule of Torah and Jewish ethics on the state . . . this has been our target and raison d’être since our founding.”18 One of HaPoel HaMizrachi’s means for accomplishing this was introducing unique models of settlement, both in the rural sector (in moshavim and kibbutzim) and in 14 Netiva, Sivan 1930, 226; Daniel, In the Burden of Deeds, 128–129; The Seventh Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 26 Tevet–2 Shvat 1935, Detailed Report [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1935), 78–79. 15 Daniel, In the Burden of Deeds, 128–131; Natan-Neta Gardi, From the Life of a Religious Pioneer [Hebrew], vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: HaMizrachi-HaPoel HaMizrachi, 1979), 115–116; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference; Elimelech Nissan Neufeld, ed., Our Religious Enterprises in Eretz Yisrael [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: World Mizrachi, 1947), 5. 16 The Seventh Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 14. 17 Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years, 228. 18 Ibid., 229. See also Bernstein, A Mission and a Path, 204–205, 208–209, 215, 332–343; The Seventh Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 60–79; Bernstein, Well Done, 7–8; idem, Twenty-Five Years of Activity, 13–14, 21–24; Report of the Tenth Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, Jerusalem, 7–12 Marheshvan 1950 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem 1950), 267–268.

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the urban sector, based on the movement’s doctrine of “Torah VaAvodah” (Torah and Labor). The more such enclaves, and the more spread out they were around the country, the better seemed the prospects for a state run by Torah law. In his remarks at the Tenth conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi in 1950, Moshe Goldstein said: Our federation is also, if not principally, a means for putting our ideas and world view into practice. When we etched the slogan “Torah VaAvodah” on our banner, it became one of the cornerstones of our ideology—the recognition that we must live this kind of life ourselves. We must create enclaves in the Jewish Yishuv where people will live a life founded on this outlook, as private individuals and a community. We must understand that a political struggle for religion and social justice in this country is not sufficient. We must live this life ourselves, in nuclei that will constitute a living, organic part of the country-in-the making and impart a special character in keeping with our outlook. At the same time, these nuclei will provide a vibrant example of how such a life can be lived, and of the grandeur and beauty of this kind of life. The more nuclei there are, the more we can change the face of the Yishuv to gradually conform with our vision . . . and it is not enough that the locations we have already established continue to exist. A basic principle of our organizational structure must be to build more of these modules all over the country, wherever we can. Kibbutzim, workers cooperatives, workers neighborhoods, branches of workers’ clubs. We cannot stop at what we have achieved until now. . . . If we want to be true to our calling, we must make every effort to keep the momentum going. The more we add, the more the state will be shaped in keeping with our philosophy.19

In the rural sector, the settlement model followed by HaPoel HaMizrachi was the same block pattern used by the Religious Kibbutz Movement: the establishment of a cluster of kibbutzim and moshavim in close proximity to create a distinct geographic entity and foster strong religious, social and economic ties. Shlomo Zalman Shragai elucidated this principle: This is the Torah: To redeem the Land of Israel, the children of Israel must settle in independent territorial units that, over time, will yield a Jewish majority and transform the Land of Israel into the State of Israel. To redeem 19 Report of the Tenth Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 157–158; The Seventh Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 60–61, 76, 78–79.

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the Torah of Israel, territorial clusters of Jews living by the Torah must grow to the point where they form one large territorial block, which looks toward the Torah and is guided by its light. They will create a Jewish religious majority that will turn the State of Israel into a Torah state. What is the significance of this new enterprise? Every clod of earth redeemed by observant Jews becomes a stronghold for religious Judaism and the basis for claiming others. . . . It is these territorial units that will determine the public face of religious practice and the mutual obligations of the community and the individual with respect to these practices.20

The principle of settlement blocks led to the establishment of religious kibbutzim in the Beit Shean Valley, the Etzion Block and the Western Negev, for example, as well as clusters of HaPoel HaMizrachi moshavim in the Lower Galilee, the Negev and other parts of the country.21 The religious neighborhoods established by HaPoel HaMizrachi in the cities were designed to put into practice the goals cited above, which were pursued in the rural sector via settlement blocks.22 These neighborhoods, populated exclusively by observant Jews affiliated with HaPoel HaMizrachi, were meant to serve as independent enclaves where a Torah VaAvodah lifestyle could flourish and gradually spread to the rest of the country. In 1940, Zvi Bernstein, a leading figure in the movement, made this clear: “Through this housing program we are creating autonomous pocket neighborhoods that could sow the seeds for a new society based on the Torah VaAvodah idea. It is not just a means of solving the grave housing problems in this country.23 We are pursuing housing activities that are similar in concept and implementation to the settlement initiatives.”24 Seven years later, Michael Hazani, head of HaPoel HaMizrachi’s agricultural center, expanded on this idea: The purpose of our housing projects is not merely to provide our members and their families with better lodgings, although the importance of that socialist objective should not be belittled. What we are aiming for is to create a solid, cohesive ideological-organizational framework for our many comrades outside the agricultural sector by bringing them together in one 20 Alonim 32 (Sivan 1947): 4–5. 21 See Katzburg, Nahalat Emunim; Katz, The Religious Kibbutz Movement. 22 Netiva, Tevet 1949, 2. 23 Bernstein, Well Done, 55–56. 24 Idem, Twenty-Five Years of Activity, 21–24.

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geographical place, that is, an autonomous workers neighborhood. In this respect, housing projects are of top importance, second in line only to settlement projects, for carrying out our mission. Even if the neighborhood is not independent from a municipal point of view, territorially and organizationally it is a closed unit, not unlike an agricultural settlement. The residents are all cut from the same cloth, sharing goals and aspirations. While the neighborhood may be subject to municipal laws, residents have the power to enact their own rules and regulations, to give shape and form to their lives and preserve the neighborhood’s religious and social character. Furthermore, such neighborhoods constitute an early-stage model for building up the core of the movement.25

It was the successfulness of HaPoel HaMizrachi’s settlement block ideology in the Beit Shean Valley in the second half of the 1930s that appears to have spurred the movement into bringing the Torah VaAvodah model to the cities.26 Unsurprisingly, from the moment that ideology entered the picture, these neighborhoods, which were open to religious Jews regardless of political affiliation in the first half of the 1930s, began to be marketed exclusively to HaPoel HaMizrachi families. Previously, newspaper advertising had appealed to “members of the community [HaPoel HaMizrachi] and ultra-Orthodox Jews.”27 A third reason for building religious neighborhoods, or at least those established immediately after the state was founded, was political. HaPoel HaMizrachi, like other political organizations, invested prodigious efforts in recruiting supporters from among the influx of new immigrants to ramp up its political power and further its goals. Towards this end, HaPoel HaMizrachi began outreach activities even before their arrival and during their stay in transit camps.28 Delegates to the Tenth conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, which took place at the end of 1949, declared: Now that the state has been established and we have stepped up our municipal and local political activities, we need an increasingly broad public 25 Netiva, Iyar–Sivan 1947, 10–11. See also Daniel, In the Burden of Deeds, 137, 150–151; Report of the Tenth Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 194, 267; Neufeld, Our Religious Enterprises in Eretz Yisrael, 5–6; Netiva, Sivan 1934, 5; ibid., Tevet 1947, 4; ibid., Kislev– Tevet 1946, 11; ibid., Tishrei 1947, 2, 8. 26 Katz, The Religious Kibbutz Movement, 103–145. 27 Netiva, Tammuz 1934, 4; ibid., Av 1934, 3; ibid., Av 1934, 4; ibid., Adar B 1935; ibid., Elul 1935, 12. 28 Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years, 56–57, 61–65.

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that identifies with our goals and will join us in our bid to spread the ideology of Torah VaAvodah. . . .29 What we should be doing at this conference is not speculating about how religious Jews will soon become the majority, but searching for genuine ways of turning the population of religious workers now living in the country, and the tens of thousands on the road, into an inspiring, productive spiritual and political entity that will build a labor-based religious society capable of exerting a growing influence on the character of the state.30

In the wake of these exhortations, the Executive Committee was asked to do everything in its power to bring more religious immigrants into the movement.31 At the Eleventh HaPoel HaMizrachi conference three years later, the Committee reported on its work: With a sixth of the State of Israel spending years in temporary accommodation in camps and transit camps, our movement must devise a comprehensive organizational campaign to reach this group, which includes many members and supporters. Only by putting such a plan into action can we assure that a significant number remain within our ranks.32 HaPoel HaMizrachi has always regarded the absorption of religious immigrants as one of its key missions, and the importance of this mission has many faces: national, religious and organizational. The growth and development of HaPoel HaMizrachi depends to a large extent on its fulfillment of this mission. Our aliyah department welcomes the newcomers, brings them into the movement, finds housing for them, stands behind them as they establish themselves financially and helps them create a stable life for themselves.33

The act of establishing neighborhoods to absorb religious immigrants who were ideologically close to HaPoel HaMizrachi or being courted by it—neighborhoods permeated not only by religious observance but by the doctrines of the movement—was a direct continuation of HaPoel HaMizrachi’s drive to increase its membership and amass political power. At its conference at the end of 1949, HaPoel HaMizrachi declared that creating

29 30 31 32 33

Report of the Tenth Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 162. Ibid., 164. See also ibid., 150, 161. Ibid., 264. Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years, 65. Ibid., 54–55.

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clusters of immigrant settlement in different parts of the country was vital for the movement, and called upon Mishkenot to build HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods next to existing neighborhoods and communities.34 Summarizing its activities in 1952, the Executive Committee already reported achievements in this sphere: In terms of an immigrant’s physical absorption, there may be no difference between living in a general neighborhood or a designated neighborhood, but  from the organizational and religious perspective, the difference is enormous. . . We have seen that non-denominational religious neighborhoods are unrealistic. Obviously, it is easier for a religious immigrant to become an active part of the movement in a HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhood. . . . Recognizing this, we have made this branch of our work a priority and are devoting all our efforts to settling large numbers of religious immigrants in HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods in the knowledge that we are expanding our ranks, increasing our power and influence, and, at the same time, empowering religious Judaism.35

The Executive Committee further noted that “these housing projects have greatly strengthened nearby HaPoel HaMizrachi branches by providing a new injection of members and activists. Indirectly, we have also enhanced the standing of Orthodox Judaism.”36 There is no question that in addition to reinforcing the local branches, the object of the decision in 1949 to build new neighborhoods in close proximity to the movement’s existing enclaves was to win the immigrants over ideologically. Nevertheless, neighborhoods were also established in locations where HaPoel HaMizrachi had not yet gone: “We must not, under any circumstances, forgo an opportunity to create nuclei for a life of Torah VaAvodah.” The goal was to ensure that no dot on the map be overlooked in the appeal to Jews in Eretz Yisrael to live a religious life and educate their children in the Jewish way.37

34 35 36 37

Report of the Tenth Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 258. Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years, 56. Ibid., 57. Also see CZA, file KKL5/17173, letter from Mishkenot to the JNF, July 28, 1949. Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years, 130–131; Report of the Tenth Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 153. Also see Bernstein, Twenty-Five Years of Activity, 13–21; CZA, file KKL5/17173, letter from Mishkenot to the JNF, March 27, 1949; ibid., letter from Mishkenot to the JNF, July 28, 1949.

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Preserving the special character of HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods The first and most basic step taken to preserve the special character of HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods was monitoring the make-up of the population. In the early 1930s, the main concern of HaPoel HaMizrachi was the religiosity of the potential resident. From the end of the 1930s, however, when the movement began to view these neighborhoods as an ideological tool for creating a community (and later a state) run by Torah law, membership in HaPoel HaMizrachi was also a requirement. Of course, joining HaPoel HaMizrachi became doubly important when the neighborhoods began to serve as a political vehicle. In practice, the review of potential residents was carried out by means of an agreement between the top tier of HaPoel HaMizrachi and the Jewish National Fund, the land supplier for most of the neighborhoods. According to the agreement, the JNF would sign a land lease agreement—the sole legal document that guaranteed tenancy rights— only to tenants approved by HaPoel HaMizrachi’s housing center (which operated as a unit of the Executive Committee and was based in Tel Aviv). Moreover, the local housing committees at branches of HaPoel HaMizrachi around the country had to confirm that the tenant signing a contract at the regional JNF office was the same person who had been approved by the housing center.38 Despite this strict control system, some people slipped 38 Bernstein, Twenty-Five Years of Activity, 21–24; Summary, Tenth Conference, 150; CZA, file KKL5/10380, letter from the housing center of HaPoel HaMizrachi to the JNF, March 13, 1938; ibid., letter from the housing center to the JNF, March 28, 1938; ibid., letter from A. Borochov of the JNF to Kiryat Shmuel committee, May 30, 1938; ibid., file KKL5/10379, letter from A. Borochov of the JNF to the JNF office in Emek Zevulun, October 28, 1938; ibid., letter from HaPoel HaMizrachi to the JNF, October 23, 1938; ibid., letter from A. Yaeli of the JNF office in Emek Zevulun to the JNF head office, December 21, 1938; ibid., letter from the JNF to Kiryat Shmuel committee, September 2, 1938; ibid., letter from the JNF to HaPoel HaMizrachi Executive Committee, August 30, 1938; ibid., letter from the JNF office in Emek Zevulun to the JNF head office, October 31, 1938; ibid., letter from A. Borochov of the JNF to the JNF office in Emek Zevulun, December 26, 1938; ibid., letter from A. Borochov of the JNF office to the JNF office in Emek Zevulun, December 15, 1938; ibid., letter from the housing center to the JNF, October 23, 1938; ibid., file KKL5/13776, letter from Mishkenot to Kiryat Shmuel committee, September 8, 1944; ibid., file KKL5/11709, letter from the JNF office in Emek Zevulun to Kiryat Shmuel committee, May 30, 1940; ibid., file KKL5/13776, letter from the JNF office in Emek Zevulun to the JNF head office, May 14, 1945; ibid., file KKL5/13859, land lease contract between the JNF and Mishkenot, May 23, 1945. Previously, it should be noted, the JNF had granted tenant selection rights to the housing center of the Histadrut, which was building neighborhoods for its members, and the center was named as a third party in JNF land lease contracts. This was done to preserve the socialist character of the enterprise. See Shmuel Shaked, “Public Housing in Israel,” in Building Israel: Housing Projects in the 1950s [Hebrew], ed. Miriam Tuvia and Michael Boneh (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad , 1999), 82–83. Also see Netiva, Tevet 1949, 2.

HaPoel HaMizrachi Movement and Urban Religious Settlement in the Land of Israel

through who did not meet the movement’s criteria. In its report to the Eighth conference in 1942, the Executive Committee alluded to this: “Experience has taught us some valuable lessons. . . . Great care must be exercised in the personal selection of candidates. Any laxity in this regard could harm the religious-ideological character of these quarters.”39 When immigrants were being absorbed en masse ten years later, the Committee wrote: “Our housing schemes have been implemented with an eye to their importance for the movement while accentuating the character of the neighborhoods and their goal. We have carefully screened candidates to ascertain that they are observant Jews and members of HaPoel HaMizrachi. By entrusting our immigration department alone with the registration process, we have greatly reduced the possibility of non-religious immigrants moving into HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods.”40 While HaPoel HaMizrachi could oversee the entry of new tenants, thanks in large measure to its agreement with the JNF, keeping track of second owners, who bought apartments from the original tenants, and rentals, was more problematic: “Even isolated cases of someone selling to an outsider in a neighborhood consisting of a few dozen families can seriously affect the soul of the neighborhood.”41 Another problem was posed by apartments built in the early days of the project on plots purchased from private landowners. In these cases, the agreement with the JNF could not be enforced. HaPoel HaMizrachi’s housing center was thus advised to register the land in the name of HaPoel HaMizrachi or Mishkenot, rather than individual tenants, “in order to guarantee the value and organizational affiliation of the neighborhood. Otherwise the neighborhood will lose its communal essence and become private property, which could harm the social and religious character of the neighborhood in the event of turnover.”42 However, this solution seems to have encountered problems: The buyers were unwilling to forgo title because they were the ones who paid for the land if it was privately owned. A decision was thus reached to stop purchasing land from private owners and to build solely on JNF land, while arranging for title of the small number of plots purchased from

39 40 41 42

Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 181. Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years, 58. Netiva, Tevet 1949, 2. Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Report to the Eighth Conference, 181. Also see Daniel, In the Burden of Deeds, 133–134.

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private citizens to be transferred to the JNF.43 In 1949, however, the directorgeneral of Mishkenot, Moshe Kelmer, made it clear that no solution had yet been found for neighborhoods on private land.44 Genuine oversight of the population in these neighborhoods was only possible if the JNF cooperated with HaPoel HaMizrachi in its efforts to review and select candidates. One instance of such cooperation was the agreement mentioned above that enabled HaPoel HaMizrachi to monitor the first round of buyers. Another accord between HaPoel HaMizrachi and the JNF was drawn up in the late 1930s to monitor second owners and renters. This accord stipulated that property owners could not rent or sell their homes without the consent of Mishkenot. In this way, Mishkenot could ascertain that newcomers met the criteria established by HaPoel HaMizrachi. To anchor the accord legally, sections in the JNF’s standard contract that dealt with leasing and subleasing rights were amended to include Mishkenot as a third party whose permission was required, alongside that of the JNF, prior to the sale or rental of apartments in HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods. The JNF’s willingness to amend its contract for the sake of preserving the character of these neighborhoods won high praise from HaPoel HaMizrachi executives.45 Nevertheless, Kelmer, the head of Mishkenot, admitted in 1949 that JNF officials were lax in asking apartment owners to bring authorization from Mishkenot before transferring property rights,46 and the same was true for rentals: Apartment owners did not always seek JNF approval (and it goes without saying, the approval of Mishkenot). While all rentals until 1949 were to religious families, this was only coincidental. They could have rented to non-religious people, creating an “uncomfortable situation.”47 HaPoel HaMizrachi and Mishkenot were aware that it was up to them to prevent such loopholes lest it “destroy our image. Our neighborhood could lose its 43 Daniel, In the Burden of Deeds, 151; Bernstein, Twenty-Five Years of Activity, 21–24; Summary, Tenth Conference, 150. 44 Netiva, Tevet 1949, 2. 45 CZA, file KKL5/11709, letter from the JNF office in Emek Zevulun to Kiryat Shmuel committee, May 30, 1940; Bernstein, Twenty-Five Years of Activity, 21–24; Summary, Tenth Conference, 150; CZA, file KKL5/13859, letter from Mishkenot to the JNF, February 15, 1944; ibid., letter from the JNF to HaPoel HaMizrachi, February 20, 1944; ibid., file KKL5/17173, letter from Mishkenot to Engineer Borman, February 17, 1948; ibid., letter from Borochov of the JNF to Mishkenot, March 22, 1948; ibid., file KKL5/13859, JNF lease contract, March 1944. 46 Netiva, Tevet 1949, 2. 47 Ibid.

HaPoel HaMizrachi Movement and Urban Religious Settlement in the Land of Israel

distinctive character and tarnish the reputation of the entire movement. . . . It seems clear that we cannot go on for long without resolving this serious problem.”48 Therefore a proposal was drawn up to register the homes and neighborhoods as cooperative societies (as was done for kibbutzim and Histadrut neighborhoods). This would allow governance by special bylaws, and any newcomers to the neighborhood, including renters, would have to be approved by the society, that is, the veteran tenants.49 The proposal, however, remained on paper. Over the years, HaPoel HaMizrachi and Mishkenot considered introducing other changes in the JNF contract that would enhance Mishkenot oversight. One idea discussed in 1940, which came up again in the autumn of 1949, was a request that Mishkenot review any plans by homeowners to make alterations in their apartments. Homeowners would have to go through Mishkenot and receive its blessing before seeking JNF approval. The rationale was that “even if it is true that apartments in our neighborhood are registered under the names of individual homeowners, in order to preserve the special character of the neighborhood, it is essential for us to give our consent to any design changes before the plans are submitted for your approval.”50 The JNF turned down this request: “When you asked us at the time whether we would agree that the transfer of rights from one person to another be carried out at your recommendation, we agreed for the sake of preserving the character of the neighborhood. But changing the layout of a house, or the addition of a room or a balcony, concern only the lessor and the lessee, and needless restrictions only create problems and resentment.”51 Eight years later, when the JNF revised its standard land lease contract, Mishkenot pushed for the inclusion of a number of specialized clauses in contracts signed by homeowners in HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods. This was in addition to a section that obligated homeowners to clear resale of apartments with Mishkenot before asking the JNF to transfer leasing 48 Ibid. 49 Report of the Tenth Conference of HaPoel HaMizrachi, 267; Netiva, Tevet 1949, 2; Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years, 57. 50 CZA, file KKL5/17173, letter from Mishkenot to the JNF, September 22, 1949; ibid., file KKL5/11709, letter from the JNF office in Emek Zevulun to Kiryat Shmuel committee, May 30, 1940. 51 CZA, file KKL5/17173, letter from the JNF to Mishkenot, October 5, 1949; ibid., file KKL5/11709, letter from the JNF office in Emek Zevulun to Kiryat Shmuel committee, May 30, 1940.

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rights. HaPoel HaMizrachi lobbied for a clause stating that the parties agreed to safeguard the neighborhood’s national religious character as a basic provision of the contract.52 The standard contract signed by all purchasers of housing built on JNF land stipulated that the lessee and his family “must observe the Sabbath and Jewish festivals, and abstain from any building or maintenance work on these days” (section 12), but there was no stated penalty for non-compliance.53 HaPoel HaMizrachi wanted this section to be replaced by a more detailed and binding one that would allow for sanctions as draconian as termination of the contract and eviction from the neighborhood: The lessee pledges not to engage in any labor, commerce pursuit or industry, or broadly, any form of work that is forbidden on the Sabbath and holidays according to Jewish Law, whether inside the apartment, outside in the yard or anywhere in the neighborhood. This prohibition extends to smoking on the Sabbath, cooking and heating food, and turning on the radio. It is the lessee’s responsibility to ensure that family members and guests, whether they live at that address or are visiting, abide by these rules. . . . The local rabbinate and HaPoel HaMizrachi council are authorized to decide whether actions taken by the lessee, his family members or his guests constitute desecration of the Sabbath or holidays. The lessee hereby relinquishes in advance any claims against the local rabbinate and HaPoel HaMizrachi council arising from this decision.54

HaPoel HaMizrachi also demanded irrevocable power of attorney from the  JNF to act in its name in the event of any infringement of these regulations, including the right to file suit against a homeowner for breach of contract and have him evicted from the property.55 Another demand submitted to the JNF at this time was that Mishkenot serve as the go-between in all dealings between homeowners and the JNF.56 The JNF turned down all these requests and even refused to accept a less strident version of the demand to seek termination of the contract and remove residents accused of Sabbath desecration from HaPoel HaMizrachi housing.57 The JNF was 52 CZA, file KKL5/12540, appendix to standard contract dated March 1, 1957. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid.

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only prepared to reaffirm its obligation (anchored in a new contract) to seek the prior agreement of the Executive Committee of HaPoel HaMizrachi through the auspices of Mishkenot in cases where homeowners wanted to transfer their leasing rights to a second owner.58 JNF’s refusal to comply with the requests of HaPoel HaMizrachi seems to have sprung from its unwillingness to be drawn into unnecessary litigation as well as concern that compliance in this instance might set a precedent for demands by other parties seeking to introduce changes in the contract.59 In any case, the JNF recommended that HaPoel HaMizrachi use the Cooperative Houses Law as a basis for re-clarifying its relationship with homeowners,60 and the contracts drawn up between Mishab and its clients, introduced when the company was established in 1959, appear to incorporate this recommendation.

Absence of inter-neighborhood religious and political ideology As we have seen, choosing families who fulfilled the double requirement of being religious and belonging to the movement was HaPoel HaMizrachi’s primary means of imbuing its neighborhoods with a distinctive character. Efforts were made to create an effective oversight mechanism to test for Sabbath observance, but these efforts failed. Attempts to tighten surveillance by involving HaPoel HaMizrachi in all dealings between homeowners and the JNF, which owned the land, also failed. During the period discussed in this chapter, HaPoel HaMizrachi did not devote itself to creating a broad network of communal and religious services or infuse its neighborhoods with special spiritual or ideological content that could enhance their uniqueness and create the urban Torah VaAvodah nuclei envisaged by HaPoel HaMizrachi. With the meager resources available to HaPoel HaMizrachi and the residents themselves as they struggled to make ends meet, there were no significant budgets for religious and political infrastructure, and little time for organizing religious and political programming except in the veteran neighborhoods 58 Ibid.; CZA, file KKL5/25540, letter from the JNF to Mishkenot, January 12, 1958; ibid., letter from Mishkenot to the JNF, June 26, 1958; ibid., letter from the JNF to Mishkenot, July 30, 1958; ibid., letter from the JNF Housing Department to the JNF offices in various parts of the country, August 16, 1958. 59 See a hint to this in CZA, file KKL5/12682, letter from Shmuel Ussishkin to the JNF, April 18, 1943. 60 CZA, file KKL5/25540, letter from S. Ben-Shemesh to Mishkenot, January 12, 1958.

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like Kiryat Shmuel. Adding some kind of substance to HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods began only later, and even then, on a very small scale.61 The absence of religious and ideological content in the neighborhoods, which made it difficult to create HaPoel HaMizrachi nuclei in the cities, troubled the heads of the movement. An article published in Netiva, the newsletter of HaPoel HaMizrachi, in the summer of 1947, addressed this issue and called for stricter monitoring of the human component. Based on the experience of HaPoel HaMizrachi nuclei in the rural sector, Michael Hazani, director of the movement’s agricultural center, wrote that it was the residents themselves who bore most of the responsibility for putting HaPoel HaMizrachi’s ideals into practice in the urban sector. Due to their importance, his remarks are worth quoting here at length: Our housing enterprise is developing satisfactorily in terms of size and scope. . . . However, this growth has not been accompanied by a serious concern for quality. We need to worry lest volume take precedence over pith and substance. It is our duty to establish forthwith a platform, a charter and gates  for our neighborhoods in order to safeguard their character and ideology. . . . All residents of the neighborhood must see themselves as partners in the project, responsible and mutually accountable for its content and character. They must maintain its distinctive religious ambiance, both as individuals and as an organized public. Residents are responsible not only for their own behavior and that of their household, but for the conduct of the community at large. In these neighborhoods, as in the agricultural settlements, the atmosphere and neighborhood charter must provide an antidote in advance for any deviance or subterfuge. The neighborhoods must jointly establish, maintain and foster religious and cultural institutions. Each neighborhood must ensure that a beit midrash [study hall] for Torah study and intellectual enlightenment is built in its midst, to serve as a spiritual, cultural and social hub. Like the agricultural settlements, the neighborhood must assume collective responsibility for educating its young and preparing them for a life of Torah and Labor. Towards this end, it must build kindergartens and schools where none exist, strive to provide quality education, and share the financial burden of running a religious school. Over time, each large neighborhood might 61 Daniel, In the Burden of Deeds, 134–151; Netiva, Iyar–Sivan 1947, 10–11; ibid., Tevet 1949, 2.

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consider hiring a rabbi of its own who will serve as a guide and spiritual leader. . . . As soon as a neighborhood is established, however, it must set aside time for Torah study, open a library, hold lectures and classes, organize parties to bring people together, invite the public to artistic performances and so on. . . . Like the agricultural settlements, these neighborhoods must be models of mutual aid and social responsibility . . . with rules and regulations drawn up in this spirit. Taxes will have to be paid, and foundations established for this purpose. . . . Cooperative economic enterprises should be built in the neighborhood so that residents are also linked to the community through their livelihood, and other members of the movement can share in the ambiance of the neighborhood during working hours. As a closely-knit ideological hub, the neighborhood must serve as the movement’s organizational and operational base and a gravitational pull for the local religious community. Since the substance of these neighborhoods is our obligation and we care about its image, the following requirements should be observed. (a) We must be extremely careful in the selection of candidates . . . with prime importance given to religious and social conduct, as well as loyalty to the movement and its values. It may be necessary to  establish an interim period before the candidate receives final approval. . . . (b) We must assemble a group of neighborhood founders who will be provided with a solid organizational and legal framework. . . . I know that a neighborhood charter has been in the making for a long time, but the work is not yet complete. In the meantime, a number of neighborhoods have arisen which, according to the rumors, have begun to show cracks here and there. . . . (c) We must introduce strict guidelines and ongoing supervision in all the neighborhoods, both young and old, from the very start. If this is necessary in neighborhoods of oldtimers who are actively involved in the movement, it is doubly important in the neighborhoods of new immigrants. Who will do this work? Mishkenot only addresses the practical and organizational aspects of the project. . . . It does not deal with the content or soul of the neighborhoods, or engage in guidance or oversight. I have no grievance against Mishkenot, but I do have a complaint against us all: Why are we allowing ourselves to be sidetracked from what is most important, from the core and essence? It seems to me that our most urgent task is to install an executive body that will assume a leadership role in the existing neighborhoods and take a stand on social and ideological issues. To enhance the influence and authority of this

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body, it is best that the residents themselves be involved in it. Therefore I believe the neighborhoods should be organized on a national scale with this centralized body as its head.62

In the years that followed, Hazani’s words went unheeded. At the end of 1948, Moshe Kelmer, director of Mishkenot and later head of Mishab, expressed his disappointment in the lack of religious and ideological programming in the neighborhoods. His article in Netiva, which was a continuation of Hazani’s remarks in some respect, delineated what he and other leaders of HaPoel HaMizrachi wished to see in these neighborhoods that would enable them to become pocket communities of Torah learning and Zionism. But Kelmer’s visions, like Hazani’s, were utopian, and in the manner of utopias, little, if any of it, came true: In terms of externals and the pace of building, we can see progress and development in the neighborhoods, but we cannot say the same for the inner, spiritual core, where the terrain remains almost virgin. No work has been done to organize the life of the community. Indeed, such work is not easy and the problems are many. . . . When we build a neighborhood we still have no possibility of including public buildings in the plan: synagogue, ritual bath, kindergarten, schools, etc. . . . To wit, not one neighborhood has a self-standing synagogue and prayers are held in a rented apartment unsuited for this purpose. Even in Kiryat Shmuel, which is over ten years old, there is no synagogue although the plans were ready long ago. Only this year, a public hall was built to serve as a temporary synagogue. The same is true for other public buildings. None of the neighborhoods have a kindergarten or a school apart from Kiryat Shmuel, but even there, they operate in inappropriate rented facilities. . . . The existence of a local benevolent society could be highly beneficial. However, the only place that has such an association is Kiryat Shmuel, which excels in this area. In order to build public buildings and institutions we need an organizational body or neighborhood committee that will commit to promoting such projects. Unfortunately, not all neighborhoods have committees, and even those that do are not very active or enterprising in this sphere. . . . Obviously, this must 62 Netiva, Iyar–Sivan 1947, 10. Also see the article by Y. M. Glass, “Torah VaAvodah Communes in the City,” Netiva, Tishrei 1947, 8. Preceding Hazani by half a year, Glass wrote: “We have not yet succeeded in establishing communes for Torah VaAvodah in the city.” He also stressed the absence of organized programs for Torah study and ideological activism.

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be addressed immediately. The Kiryat Shmuel committee is a fine model of how a neighborhood can develop under the leadership of dedicated men of action. Our neighborhoods must serve as a nucleus for a life of Torah and Labor. A person entering a neighborhood of HaPoel HaMizrachi should be able to identify it right away. . . . This is only possible if the neighborhood has an ideological, cultural, and religious life, which would manifest itself in a synagogue, Torah classes, lectures, meetings sponsored by the movement, and so on. Sadly, I cannot say this about our neighborhoods.63

Local neighborhood content, which was portrayed as the ideal for urban nuclei established by HaPoel HaMizrachi, was thus missing, and, in effect, the only special feature of HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods was their religious population. In fact, this was so for most of the neighborhoods even years after Hazani and Kelmer’s observations. Neither the movement nor the homeowners allocated resources for infrastructure such as synagogues, schools, kindergartens or clubs that were receptacles for religious or ideological content. Altogether, there was little in the way of religious programming, volunteering and ideological activism.64 Financing public buildings and activities was a source of ongoing dispute between the residents and HaPoel HaMizrachi, “and the Executive Committee always referred them to Mishkenot, while Mishkenot claimed it was up to the local municipal authorities. Meanwhile, the neighborhoods remained empty of public buildings.”65 In a handful of neighborhoods HaPoel HaMizrachi did contribute to this effort when “we saw that public buildings were an organizational imperative of the highest order and not resolving the issue could endanger the whole structure of the neighborhood.”66 Yet even then, the assistance consisted of remodeling apartments or sections of apartments for this purpose.67 In 1964, when Mishab marked its twenty-fifth anniversary, HaTzofe newspaper published a soul-searching editorial by Shlomo Roich lamenting the lack of substance in HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhoods and examining the movement’s role in this failure: “We should be scrutinizing our actions to ensure that we have done what is necessary to carry out the mission 63 Netiva, Heshvan 1949, 3. 64 HaTzofe, March 20, 1964, editorial by Shlomo Roich, “Holiday Musings.” Also see Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years, 134–135. 65 Histadrut HaPoel HaMizrachi, Executive Committee, Three Years, 58–59. 66 Ibid., 58. 67 Ibid., 58–59.

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behind these neighborhoods. We must see to it that we have not simply built neighborhoods and forgotten the residents, while bearing in mind our spiritual, religious, educational, ideological, and social duty .”68 Roich called for the establishment of a joint committee of HaPoel HaMizrachi and Mishab that would prepare an orderly plan of action to be implemented by all the central departments of HaPoel HaMizrachi and its local branches: This committee will devote special attention to: (a) establishing public buildings: synagogues, schools and kindergartens, clubs for adults and children, ritual baths, and so on, drawing upon independent financing from the movement and its members, government and municipal budgets, and overseas fundraising campaigns; (b) establishing a branch of the movement in every HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhood that will carry out administrative and organizational activities.69

Conclusion In building religious neighborhoods for HaPoel HaMizrachi members in urban and rural areas around the country, the movement had three goals: providing its members with an environment where they could practice a religious lifestyle; creating Torah VaAvodah nuclei in the cities which, together with blocks of religious agricultural settlement, would promote the idea of a Jewish state based on Torah law;70 and boosting HaPoel HaMizrachi membership to increase the movement’s political power. These goals were similar to those of other Zionist movements, in particular the Labor Movement, which established neighborhoods for members in the Yishuv period and the early days of the state. Great effort was invested by HaPoel HaMizrachi to create screening tools that would ensure that the population was religious and affiliated with the movement, and in this mission it seems to have succeeded. On the other hand, its success in infusing special content in the urban neighborhoods was very limited. In other words, HaPoel HaMizrachi did a good job of creating the human infrastructure, but did not succeed in 68 See above, note 64. 69 Ibid. Also see From Conference to Conference, 26–27. HaPoel HaMizrachi did not implement the decision of the Executive Committee to draw up a charter for its neighborhoods until 1957. 70 Katz, The Religious Kibbutz Movement, 224–277.

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creating the desired ambiance. The Religious Kibbutz Movement’s block settlement scheme on the eve of the establishment of the state suffered a very similar fate. It succeeded in implementing its idea of territorially, that is, establishing a cluster of kibbutzim in close proximity, but failed to build a network of economic and other ties between kibbutzim in the same block, which was a key component of the movement’s settlement ideology.71 In both the city and the rural sector, the idea could be implemented only partially. Slight hurdles had to be overcome in building the infrastructure, but it was infinitely harder to infuse content. As the years went by, the country’s secular political neighborhoods, especially those financed by the Labor Movement, provided large numbers of supporters with organized housing. However, because urban pioneering was never recognized as a long-term solution for developing Israel’s cities, these neighborhoods did not achieve the ideological and political objectives that led to their founding.72 In most cases, the religious neighborhoods were not very large, did not expand significantly over time, and were surrounded by non-religious neighborhoods. Their separatism lay in the religious uniformity of the population and not in some measurable geographical distance from the secular community. Hence their physical presence was quite understated and not comparable to today’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. The latter, apart from their demographic uniformity, are relatively large and physically separate from secular neighborhoods in a way that makes them stand out in the landscape. In addition, in stark contrast to the neighborhoods of HaPoel HaMizrachi, ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods are brimming with religious and communal content, not to mention organizational and political activity. From a time perspective, it seems that only in the large neighborhoods, such as Kiryat Shmuel, HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhood in Petach Tiqva, Kiryat Herzog, built by Mishab on the outskirts of Bnei Brak in the 1960s, and the community settlements established in Judea, Samaria, and the Galilee (which can be seen as suburbs in every respect), did religious Zionism succeed in creating distinct urban enclaves infused with communalreligious and ideological content. In other words, the type of settlement HaPoel HaMizrachi sought to create in the urban sector in the period 71 Ibid. 72 Greitzer, “The Ideological Basis,” 137–138.

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under discussion materialized mainly in one place—Kiryat Shmuel, and only later expanded to a broader scale. The common denominator between Kiryat Shmuel, HaPoel HaMizrachi neighborhood in Petach Tiqva, Kiryat Herzog, and the community settlements, was their size and the critical mass they formed that made it possible to secure funding for religious, educational and public building as well as religious and organizational programming. Kiryat Shmuel and the community settlements had legally binding charters. In recent years, quite a few grassroots initiatives have sprung up to build neighborhoods for the national religious public in newly built cities. In these neighborhoods, public buildings such as synagogues, community centers and schools have been planned in advance. The demand for housing in these neighborhoods by young religious Zionists appears to be high. Thus HaPoel HaMizrachi’s vision of more than sixty years ago may finally be coming true.

Chapter 6

Incorporating Jewish Law in Israel’s Land Law, 1969

The incorporation of Jewish Law (mishpat ivri) in Israeli jurisprudence has been of interest to thinkers and scholars from various disciplines since before the establishment of the State of Israel.1 Perhaps the most noted works of scholarship on the subject are the publications of Menachem Elon and Nahum Rakover.2 However, no inductive-methodological study has been published on the approach to Jewish Law of Knesset members, whose views were invariably colored by their ideology and political outlook. Similarly, there is no comprehensive study of how proposals to incorporate Jewish Law were viewed by the Justice Ministry jurists who prepared government bills, and by the professional law committees that discussed alternatives to Ottoman law and submitted recommendations to the Justice Ministry for further legislation. The contribution of the Justice Ministry’s advisor 1 See, for example, the bibliographical list in Nahum Rakover, Otzar HaMishpat: A Bibliography of Jewish Law [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Harry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research, 1975–1990), vol. 1, 129–132; vol. 2, 127–133. The term “Jewish Law” (mishpat ivri) in the context of this chapter refers to the aspects of Halakha that can be applied to the areas usually covered by secular legal systems. 2 Menachem Elon, “Jewish Law in State Jurisprudence” [Hebrew], HaPraklit 25 (1968): 27–53 (article based on a lecture delivered on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of HaPraklit, October 9, 1968); idem, “The Sources and Nature of Jewish Law and Its Application in the State of Israel,” part 1: Israel Law Review 2, no. 4 (1967): 515–565, part 2: Israel Law Review 3, no. 1 (1968): 88–126, part 3: Israel Law Review 3, no. 3 (1968): 416–457, part 4: Israel Law Review 4, no. 1 (1969): 80–140; idem, Jewish Law [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1978–1992), vol. 1, 101–128; vol. 3, 1254–1593; Nahum Rakover, Maimonides and the Law in Israel [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: The Library of Jewish Law, 1985); idem, Incorporating Jewish Law in Israeli Law [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: The Library of Jewish Law, 1998). See also below, note 4.

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on Jewish Law, a position introduced in the 1950s, is also worthy of more scrutiny than it has merited to date.3 Professor Rakover’s Jewish Law in the Debates of the Knesset was published in 1988,4 but this book looks at selections from the Knesset protocols (first, second, and third readings of law proposals, legislation, and debates in the plenum) that touch on Jewish sources in some way. The deliberations of Knesset committees and Justice Ministry legal teams are not addressed, and analyzing attitudes on the inclusion of Jewish Law in the laws of the state was not the book’s objective. The degree to which Jewish Law has been integrated in Israeli law over the years, taking into account such variables as fluctuations in the national mood, the inauguration of a new Justice Minister, replacement of the chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee (CLJC), and political change in the Knesset, is a subject that has not been fully explored. In his prologue to Rakover’s book, Chaim Herzog, a lawyer, Knesset member, and later president of the State of Israel, stated that in drafting new laws, Israeli legislators “have frequently adopted the doctrines and terminology of Jewish Law.”5 In fact, this statement seems somewhat dubious and has never been subjected to thorough scrutiny. Moreover, it was not until 1980 that Israel enacted the Foundations of Law Act, which provides that “where the court, faced with a legal question requiring decision, finds no answer to it in statute law or case-law or by analogy, it shall decide in light of the principles of freedom, justice, equity and peace of Israel’s heritage,” rather than fall back on Mandatory law.6 From the enactment of this piece of legislation, one can see that the principles of Jewish Law were not at all foremost in the thinking of Israel’s legislators despite the presence of an advisor on Jewish Law in the Justice Ministry, whose job was to bring the relevant Jewish texts to the knowledge of lawmakers and judges. When the state was established, the Israeli legal system ultimately inherited the entire corpus of Mandatory law. Israeli legislation retained the spirit of English 3 On the appointment of an advisor on Jewish Law in the Justice Ministry, see Knesset Archives, file gimmel/5716/11; Prof. Menachem Elon, oral interview, August 25, 2001. 4 Nahum Rakover, Jewish Law in the Debates of the Knesset [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: The  Library of Jewish Law, 1988). From the early 1960s, Rakover was the Justice Ministry’s deputy advisor on Jewish Law under Prof. Menachem Elon, and has later served for many years as the advisor on Jewish Law. In 1982 he was appointed deputy attorney general. 5 Ibid., vol. 1, 5–6 . 6 See Foundations of Law Act, 1980, Article 1, in ibid., 3.

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law and derived power from its codices for years to come.7 In his writings in the 1960s and late 1970s, Menachem Elon observed that even decades after the establishment of the state, it was obvious that Israeli lawmakers had not yet formed a clear picture of how much priority they should give to the principles of Jewish Law. So although a fair number of Jewish legal doctrines had made their way into Israeli law, the proportion was much smaller than it could have been, and various state laws contravened Jewish Law without any solid justification.8 In his books, Elon attempted to shed light on the legislators’ approach to Jewish Law, citing the explanatory notes appended to the proposed Inheritance Law in 1952: “Jewish Law has been viewed as a principal resource, but not as a sole resource or a binding one. . . . As for the laws of other nations, we believe that the practical experience and scientific grounding that lie at their core must serve us as a supplementary source of guidance and enlightenment.”9 Israel’s Minister of Justice, Pinhas Rosen, echoed these sentiments when the Cooperative Houses Law was discussed that year: “I share the satisfaction of my fellow Knesset members . . . that this law gives voice to principles of Jewish Law. However, I have my doubts whether Jewish Law should be preferred over Roman law in the realm of property law. . . . That we walk here in the land of Jewish Law fills our hearts with tremendous gratification, but we must acknowledge that economic reality comes first (and not the pre-eminence of Jewish Law).”10 The question is whether Israel would embrace this policy permanently or allow itself to be swayed by historical dynamics. On many occasions, the religious Knesset members expressed their disappointment and displeasure over the limited application of Jewish Law in the State of Israel.11 The remarks in 1979 of Avraham Melamed, a Member of Knesset (MK) representing the National Religious Party (NRP), were typical in this regard: Jewish Law is the victim of a raw deal. Any student of comparative law knows that Jewish Law is a progressive code of law. It was the forerunner of many legal concepts and ahead of its time in many spheres. In the Jewish state, paradoxically, the tables have turned: The priestess is ranked lower than the 7 Ibid., 3ff. 8 Elon, Jewish Law, vol. 1, 102; vol. 3, 1364–1365. 9 Ibid., vol. 1, 102. 10 Ibid., vol. 3, 1365. 11 Rakover, Jewish Law in the Debates of the Knesset, vol. 1, 114ff.

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mistress of the inn. Jewish Law has entered the courtroom through other legal systems, after first being absorbed by the gentiles. Every time I raise the subject, and I have done so several times, people say: We are working on it. But not enough is being done. Jewish Law has one problem—that it comes bundled with Jewish religion. That invalidates it around here. If we could secularize it and detach it from religion—which cannot be done—it might be accepted, because it is certainly no worse than the Mejelle. But it is impossible to separate the two, and anyone who sees the connection between them is stricken by fear. . . .12

Did all the religious Knesset members feel the same way? Were there differences between the ultra-Orthodox Knesset members and parliamentarians from the national religious parties? While Elon and Rakover cite instances of Jewish Law applied in Israeli law (most notably in personal status and inheritance law) as well as legislation that contradicts Jewish Law,13 no systematic micro-analysis has been undertaken on how lawmakers felt about incorporating elements of Jewish Law in specific laws at various stages in the legislation process. Likewise, nothing has been written about the logic—or, at least, the reasons or motives—for adopting or rejecting Jewish content. This chapter will examine the views of legislators who participated in the debates over Jewish precepts in Israel’s Land Law, 1969, relying mainly on deliberations in the Knesset plenum and the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, but using additional sources when available. Attention was focused on the Land Law due to the wealth of land-related issues (property law, real estate law, neighbor relations, and more) that have been discussed in the Talmud (primarily tractate Bava Batra), as well as in Maimonides’s rulings, the Shulchan Arukh, rabbinic writings and Responsa literature over the ages.14 While the relevance and applicability of ancient laws can be problematic in modern times, the large body of rulings handed down by rabbinic scholars on land law greatly enhanced the potential that Israeli legislators would consider its inclusion in state law. The approach employed here, which is basically historic, may make it useful to others engaged in micro-level research of Israeli law, and will 12 Ibid., vol. 1, 147. 13 Elon, Jewish Law, vol. 3, 1364–1455; Rakover, Otzar HaMishpat; idem, Maimonides and the Law; idem, Incorporating Jewish Law. 14 See the chapter on land law in Rakover, Maimonides and the Law.

Incorporating Jewish Law in Israel’s Land Law, 1969

enable us to reach broader conclusions on the role of Jewish Law in the legislative process while taking into account variables and resources that have been largely overlooked until now.

1964 Draft Land Bill: Historical background and content The Draft Land Bill, which was basically a codex of land laws designed to replace the Ottoman land laws in force since 1858, was submitted to the Knesset plenum for first reading in 1964. After five years of deliberation by the CLJC chaired by Moshe Unna, the amended bill became law in 1969.15 Before being brought to the Knesset in the summer of 1964 by Minister of Justice Dov Yosef, the bill had been studied by a law committee headed by Supreme Court justice Moshe Landau, which sat from 1949 and presented its conclusions in 1959. The committee, appointed by Minister of Justice Rosen, was composed of the country’s foremost experts in property law and included justices, professors, land registry officials and lawyers. Among its members were Dr. Moshe Duchan, author of important studies on land law in the Land of Israel; Judge Yitzchak Raveh of the Tel Aviv District Court; and Yaacov Tartakover, head of the Land Registration and Settlement of Rights Department.16 After a thorough examination of the existing legislation, a patchwork of laws made up of British Mandate ordinances tacked on to the 1858 Ottoman Land Code,17 the committee advised drafting a new law based on new foundations that would take a fresh approach to land administration in Israel.18 When Dov Yosef became Justice Minister in the early 1960s, he pushed for the adoption of the Landau Committee recommendations as the basis for a new law to replace the Ottoman Land Code, which constituted the legal foundation for all land-related matters from its enactment in 1858, 15 Divrei HaKnesset (The Knesset Plenary Records) 55 (1969): 3756–3814 (plenary discussions, approval of Land Law on second and third readings, July 17, 1969). 16 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2127 (Debate on Draft Land Bill of 1964, June 22, 1964) and 2270 (Debate on Draft Land Bill of 1964, July 7, 1964). 17 Reshumot, The Book of Laws, July 27, 1969 (Land Law, 1969). See also ibid., List of laws and ordinances abolished after the enactment of the Land Law, 1969. For the English translation, see https://knesset.gov.il/review/data/eng/law/kns6_land_eng.pdf. 18 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2127. Also see Justice Landau’s remarks to the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee in November 1968, which differ to some extent from what the Minister of Justice said in 1964: “Not everything in the Draft Land Bill came out of the committee’s kitchen. Many things were changed and added [by the Justice Ministry].” See Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 81, November 24, 1968, 2.

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throughout the British Mandate and even after the establishment of the state, from 1948 to 1968. However, from the outset the Ottoman Land Code was not a progressive set of laws. Even when it was enacted, it lagged far behind the land legislation of the developed nations of Europe. It was geared to the needs of a primitive, pre-industrial agricultural society in which product turnover was low, the percentage of urban real estate was low, and the peasants lived in small villages where the land, classified as mushaa, was collectively owned.19 In Turkey itself, the Ottoman laws had already been revoked and replaced by modern legislation modeled on European, and especially Swiss, norms, but Israel inherited the code as it was, with all its flaws, when it declared independence in 1948.20 The Draft Land Bill, presented to the Knesset in 1964, introduced three new principles. The first was abolishing the Ottoman classification of lands as miri, mulk, mewat, metruke, and mevkufa, which had been the source of endless conflict, in favor of one uniform category based on full property ownership.21 The second was the comprehensive mandatory registration of all land and the rights over it, to be handled by a special authority in the Justice Ministry. This authority would oversee the registry of all land in the State of Israel. No transaction could be carried out without being recorded in the national registry. The third was broadening the concept of a unit of land to comprise all buildings, plantings or permanent fixtures, and adopting the principle that all real estate transactions include these fixtures so that transactions involving fixed property (such as houses) cannot be carried out separately from the land. Ottoman law, by contrast, allowed fixed property and land to be separated, which created ownership problems: Ottoman land laws did not recognize uniform ownership rights over land, including everything built or planted on it. This made it possible for buildings

19 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2127. 20 Ibid., 2126–2129. 21 Miri land is almost exclusively agricultural and ultimately state-owned, although those who hold title to such land have extensive usage rights, including the right to sell it (with state approval) and bequeath it. Mulk is primarily urban land and belongs entirely to the owner. Mewat (dead) is rocky or swampy land that is not fit for use and is basically ownerless. Metruke is public land used for roads and other constructions. Mevkufa is endowed state land. For a detailed discussion of the legal problems of purchasing land under Ottoman law see Yossi Katz, The Battle for the Land: The History of the Jewish National Fund (KKL) Before the Establishment of the State of Israel (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2005).

Incorporating Jewish Law in Israel’s Land Law, 1969

and trees to be owned separately from the land, and for the floors and yards of a single building to have different owners. . . .22 It was a system of property ownership that devolved into total chaos, with the land belonging to one person, the garden to another, each apartment in the house to someone else, and the stairway as the joint property of all the apartment owners. . . .23 The proposed law made it unequivocally clear that ownership of the land extended to everything permanently affixed to the ground, and these fixtures could not be owned separately.24

The detailed bill, formulated as a code rather than one specific law, contained 28 chapters and 237 sections. It addressed such issues as acquisition of property rights; enforcement of real estate transactions; right of possession; demarcating boundaries (including height and depth); preemption; building or planting on another’s land; neighbor relations; co-ownership and severance of co-ownership; building or planting on co-owned land; condominiums and other joint property holdings; rights on another’s land (rental, mortgage, beneficial use); upkeep of property; common land: public land (mainly municipal-held) and designated public land (property that by nature serves the public, such as the seashore, roads, rivers, and so forth); and the land registry procedure. In addition to approving the bill, a request was submitted for the repeal of thirty-one old Ottoman laws and British ordinances pertaining to land and land ownership.25

Religious MKs push for Jewish Law Unsurprisingly, it was the religious Knesset members who were displeased with the Draft Land Bill, especially when it became clear, after the main points were read out in the Knesset by the Minister of Justice, that the bill was rooted in European jurisprudence and detached from the fundamentals of Jewish Law.26 The religious parliamentarians responded Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2128. Ibid., 2130. Ibid., 2131. Reshumot, June 15, 1964 (Draft Land Bill of 1964). Also see ibid., explanatory notes, 206–212. 26 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2126–2134. The explanatory notes that accompanied the bill declared that it drew upon “legal norms in the State of Israel, the finest principles of European law and the doctrines of Jewish Law adapted to the realities of the day.” However, the fact that Jewish Law was mentioned last was probably not accidental. 22 23 24 25

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in two ways: First, they called upon the Knesset to incorporate Jewish Law in the laws of the state as a general principle, and second, they called for amending the wording of specific sections of the law to bring them in line with Jewish Law. The remarks of MK Menachem Porush of the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisrael party illustrate the generalized call to apply Jewish Law, although the bill was already at the end of its first reading by this time: Before I go further, let me say that as a Jew faithful to the laws of the Torah, I completely and utterly reject those sections of the law that go against Torah law. There is no question whatsoever that the Torah addresses every problem and has a solution for it. In the same way that now, when we have a Jewish state, we should not be using the Ottoman code of law, which is based on Muslim religious law, the people of the Torah should not be rummaging through the laws of the gentiles to determine how we conduct and govern ourselves. It  is difficult to understand why Jewish Law is being ignored while half-baked laws from other countries are being patched together— anything to keep us from using the sources of Halakha that have been our guide since we became a nation. When I looked closely at this law and saw how much effort has gone into circumventing Jewish Law and flouting longstanding principles such as bar metzra [offering the first right of purchase to a neighbor] and chazaqa [priority of possession] . . . and when I saw the vast difference between the clarity of the Halakha versus this fumbling around in foreign pastures, I said to myself: It all goes back to the old Diaspora inferiority complex. The ultra-Orthodox Jew who lives a life of Torah is proud of his Judaism, proud of the Torah and its laws even in the face of adversity . .  . while the Jew who rejects the values of Torah and religion feels inferior and suffers from the “imitate-the-gentiles” syndrome, taking his cue from their laws while disregarding our own Torah, which is a light unto the world. Even harder to understand are the proud Jewish nationalists in the sovereign state of the Jews (i.e., the Zionist parties) who continue to harbor an “Uncle Tom” mindset and pander to the gentiles and their laws until today. . . .27 Sometimes people claim—wrongly—that the laws of the Torah are no longer relevant for our times. But the truth of the matter is that the Torah is a code of laws “to live by.” So you lawmakers, who are poking around in

27 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2341 (July 14, 1964).

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the laws of other countries, can you tell me why have you ignored what the Torah says?28

MK Shalom Avraham Shaki of the NRP expressed surprise at the explanatory notes appended to the bill, which claimed that one of its sources of inspiration was Jewish land law.29 A whole series of basic principles in Jewish Law had been disregarded, he argued, but without going into detail.30 Shlomo-Yaakov Gross of Agudat Yisrael was more specific: In the course of the debate over the Justice Ministry budget, I believe, the Minister of Justice said he hoped to base the laws of the State of Israel on the original Torah laws, or at least to integrate them as much as possible into Israeli law. However, I regret to say that the minister has not shown any such ambition in the land law now on the table. Land law could actually be an excellent opportunity to incorporate the laws of the Torah, which are grounded in healthy logic and profound human ethics, and fit the needs of civil society even in our day. The authors of this law have not only failed to use our ancient sources as a legal basis, but they have also willfully turned a blind eye to the marvelous richness of Jewish Law as a treasure trove of land legislation.31

Gross did not stop there: For nine years, Israeli jurists [the Landau Committee] sat and drafted this law, but I’m sorry to say that all they considered were foreign laws, the laws of the gentiles, whereas those in the true spirit of Judaism, at the core of Jewish Law, were discarded for one reason—because they are “ancient laws,” supposedly outdated, although they are good and just even today. There are many parts of this law that might have been anchored in Halakha, such as the section on building and planting on the land of others, but nothing was done. The Talmudic tractate Bava Batra contains entire chapters on this subject. . . .32

Gross ended with the hope that these flaws would be corrected.

28 Ibid., 2342. 29 Reshumot, June 15, 1964, explanatory notes, 207; Shaki’s remarks in Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2282 (July 7, 1964). 30 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2282. 31 Ibid., 2281. 32 Ibid., 2282.

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On the following pages we will explore the process of legislating those sections of the Land Law that were specifically linked in some way to Jewish Law.

Dina debar metzra—right of preemption Dina debar metzra, the law of neighborly preemption, which grants the adjacent neighbor the first right of purchase when a property is put up for sale, is a well-known precept based on the biblical injunction “And you shall do what is right and good” (Deuteronomy 6:18). The Torah commands us, in a general way, to behave fairly and honestly towards others. In the specific case of land sale, Jewish Law states that the owner of a neighboring plot is given priority over other potential purchasers. The underlying idea is that other purchasers can find land elsewhere, but it is only fair that the neighbor be allowed to consolidate his holdings.33 Based on the Talmud,34 Maimonides wrote: If a man sells his land to another, the neighbor whose land is contiguous to the purchased land may repay the money to the purchaser and evict him thence. . . . Even if the purchaser is a scholar, a neighbor, or a relation to the seller, and the owner of the adjacent field is an ignorant person and not related, the latter has nevertheless priority and can evict the purchaser. This law is so, because it is said, “you shall do that which is right and good.” And the Sages said: Since the sale is the same, it is good and right that this property should be bought by the abutting neighbor rather than by one from afar.35

33 Ibid., 2283. For more on dina debar metzra, see Talmudic Encyclopedia, vol. 4, 168–195, s.v. “bar metzra”; Shimshon Ben-Shemesh, “Metzranut and Its Sources in Jewish and Islamic Law” [Hebrew], Mishpat VeKalkala 3 (1957): 217–229; Nathan Ortner, “On the Matter of Dina DeBar Metzra” [Hebrew], Yesodei HaTorah (1965): 18–21; Mordechai Unger, “On the Law of Metzranut” [Hebrew], Zera Yaaqov 2–3 (1985–1986): 419–427; Yisrael David Harpenes, “Comments and Glosses on Metzranut Law” [Hebrew], Pri Temarim 15 (1984): 96–109. 34 Talmud Bavli, Bava Metzia 108b. 35 Mishneh Torah, Laws Concerning Neighbors, 12:5 (translation in Aaron Kirschenbaum, Equity in Jewish Law, Beyond Equity: Halakhic Aspirationism in Jewish Civil Law [Hoboken: Ktav, 1991]).

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The Shulchan Arukh reaches a similar conclusion: “If one sells his field to a stranger, whether the transaction is made by himself, or through an agent, or through the Court, the border neighbor has the right to return the money to the buyer and receive the field, even if the buyer is a learned man, a relative or a neighbor to the premises, and the border neighbor is an ignoramus.” The Rema (Rabbi Moses Isserles) comments on this: “Even if the seller says: I would rather not sell at all than sell to the neighbor, the neighbor still has the right to buy, in spite of the seller’s objection.”36 Dina debar metzra was one of the principles embraced by the Society for Working and Redemption of the Land, an Old Yishuv organization that sponsored Jewish pioneering efforts in the 1870s and helped to found the farm community that later became Petach Tiqva: “If any of our comrades wishes to sell his land and the legal title to it, the transaction will be carried out as follows: (a) first the vendor will act in keeping with the principle of metzranut as stated in the laws of our Holy Torah; (b) if none of our group is interested in the purchase, the vendor may sell to another party, but on condition that the group members approve. . . .”37 It is worth noting that the 1858 Ottoman Land Code also had a preemption clause, which may have been an ancient carryover from Jewish Law. However, despite the significance of dina debar metzra as a core principle in Jewish Law, and despite the fact that it was already part of Turkish law,38 the Landau Committee, and in its wake, the Justice Ministry, voted to strike it from Israeli law. We shall try to understand why they did so. In any case, it was an omission that sparked a huge outcry, especially among the religious MKs but not exclusively. A whole host of MKs voiced their disapproval, some in passing and others at length, but it is notable that even MKs from the secular camp felt that the decision to cancel the right of preemption to a bordering neighbor was unjustified.39 36 Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 175:6 (translation in Jacob Louis Kadushin, Jewish Code of Jurisprudence [New York: Jewish Jurisprudence Company, 1921], 869, Article III). 37 Alter Druyanov, On the History of Chibat Zion and the Settlement of Eretz Yisrael [Hebrew], vol. 2 (Tel Aviv and Odessa: n.p., 1925), 281. 38 The Mejelle, Civil Code of the Ottoman Empire. 39 See, for example, the remarks of MK Abramov of the Liberal Party, Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2278 (July 7, 1964). MK David Bar-Rav-Hai of Mapai declared that he agreed with MK Moshe Kelmer of the NRP, which did not happen often. Bar metzra was a deeply rooted concept, he said, and as long as it did not hamper the free market, it was worth preserving. See ibid., 2281.

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MK Shlomo-Yaakov Gross said: The sections of the law on preemption are crueler now—I have no choice but to use this word. . . . The proposed bill restricts preemption to only three instances, whereas bar metzra is a basic and fundamental principle in Jewish Law. It is a rational and moral right of the first degree and an important contribution to the greater good of society. Let us say that someone owns a few hundred meters of land bordering on his neighbor’s property. The reasonable thing to do, if he wants to sell it, would be to offer it to his neighbor. But out of spite, or because his relations with the neighbor are not good, he will sell the land to an outsider, or even an enemy of his neighbor. In such a case, why not apply our own homegrown law, dina debar metzra, which obligates him to offer the land to his neighbor? According to the proposed bill, even when there are two co-owners, each one of them can transfer title or lease his land to an outsider. There are people who might do this deliberately after a falling-out with their partner. Maimonides comments on this: “If a man sells his land to another, the neighbor whose land is contiguous to the purchased land may repay the money to the purchaser and evict him thence. This purchaser whose land is not contiguous is considered as if he were an agent of the owner of the neighboring field. This law of preemption applies regardless of whether the other field is sold by the owner or by his agent or by the court. . . .” In other words, the purchaser can be evicted if the neighbor asserts his right as a bar metzra. Maimonides goes on to say: “Even if the purchaser is a scholar, a neighbor, or a relation to the seller, and the owner of the adjacent field is an ignorant person and not related, the latter has nevertheless priority and can evict the purchaser.” . . . The authors of the bill completely ignore this humane law for no logical reason. . . . If the law is passed as is, it could spark conflict and feuds between partners and neighbors who are not on the best terms.40

MK Moshe Kelmer of the NRP, responding to the claim that preemption was an economic impediment, argued: While it is true that preemption under Ottoman law hindered economic growth, if we go by Jewish Law . . . the neighbor can be offered first rights without holding the owner back from selling. . . . The neighbor can say: I am your neighbor and if you decide to sell your land, you should ask me first. . . . Fine, if you want it, buy it. But if the neighbor stalls, you are under 40 Ibid., 2282.

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no obligation. Being a neighbor entails a certain degree of commitment. If we are neighbors for many years, and one of us decides to sell our land, the honest, fair, sensible course of action would be to offer it to the neighbor. But if he doesn’t reply right away, showing that he is interested and has the money, the neighbor is free to sell to whomever he pleases.41

MK Shalom Avraham Shaki of the NRP also emphasized the importance of bar metzra and its relevance for our day and age: This is a clause that could solve serious housing problems among the needy—in disadvantaged neighborhoods, for example, or in apartment blocks populated by new immigrants living in one-and-a-half- and tworoom apartments. The next-door neighbor may desperately need the extra breathing room but cannot afford to go into debt to buy a bigger apartment in an expensive condominium. . . .42

The CLJC chaired by MK Moshe Unna, to which the bill was sent after passing its first reading, all but ignored the omission of dina debar metzra from the bill. Surprisingly, it did not even appear on the agenda. However, from a few comments made at committee meetings and while the bill was being discussed in the plenum, one can see it was struck down for the same reasons that the Landau Committee had advised against preemption under Turkish law. Ultimately, the lawmakers wanted to do away with all preemption rights, both those conferred by the Ottomans in 1858 and those that were added in law reforms over time. Thus the bill abolished the priority rights of a co-owner seeking to buy his partner’s share in the event of a co-ownership being dissolved or split up. This ran counter to both Jewish and Ottoman law.43 Under the Draft Land Bill, and later the approved law, preemption was granted only in two cases: when selling property, such as a farm, that was jointly inherited, with the other heirs awarded priority over outsiders; 41 Ibid., 2275–2276. 42 Ibid., 2283–2284. Also see Porush’s remarks, ibid., 2343 (July 14, 1964). 43 Ibid., 2283. See the Draft Land Bill, sections 79–84, and especially section 84, which states that in the case of co-ownership that is not subject to division, the land will be auctioned off on orders of the Magistrates Court to the highest bidder and the proceeds divided between the co-owners. Compare to Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 171:6, which states: “If A says to B in a case where there is no portion for dividing, . . . sell me your share for this amount or buy my share for the same price, the right is with A, and B can be forced to sell his share or to buy the share of A.”

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or when selling property owned by a married couple, where the spouse was offered first priority.44 The basic argument against preemption was that today, unlike the past, purchasing property was a form of investment, and giving precedence to a neighbor would block or slow the pace of transactions, thereby impacting negatively on the economy. When Nahum Rakover protested this draconian paring down of preemption at a meeting of the CLJC, Dr. Uri Yadin, a top Justice Ministry official and one of the architects of the bill, explained that the law would recognize this right only when there was a clear-cut need for it: “The right of metzranut . . . puts a damper on the market. . . . It can have serious financial repercussions if the land is offered to a co-owner but he does not buy. The other party loses. . . . Relations between neighbors living side by side may have been closer once. Now land is purchased more as an investment. . . .”45 Meir Aronovsky, also from the Justice Ministry, added: The idea is to reduce preemption to the bare minimum. So we are talking about the partnership of a couple, not a partnership in general. . . . This is a very serious issue. What price can I demand from a partner? I only know after negotiating with a third party. We are about to reach a deal, but I know we cannot complete it because the offer has to go to my partner first. This is an obstacle to business. If we did this for all partnerships, they would be very hard to dissolve.

MK Arazi concluded: “Partnership in general is different from the partnership of a couple, which is a treaty. As for partnership in general . . . this may indeed cause difficulties in the economic life in Israel.”46 When the bill was brought to the Knesset for first reading, the Minister of Justice, Dov Yosef, made it clear that the ministry was well aware of dina debar metzra and the preemption provision in Ottoman law, which also extended this right to co-owners. What these laws had in common, he said, was that they were written “in earlier, more primitive times when the economy was underdeveloped,” whereas “in modern times, this right becomes a hindrance to the healthy turnover of real estate because the purchaser cannot be certain that when signing a contract he has effectively purchased the land and someone will not come along to evict him. Our 44 See Draft Land Bill, sections 39–40. The law itself also states this, in sections 100–101. 45 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 106, April 16, 1969. 46 Ibid., protocol no. 107, April 30, 1969.

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natural inclination is to abolish this system.”47 The experience of the courts confirmed this, the minister added: In its recommendations, the Landau Committee strongly opposed the practice of preemption. In particular, two judges on the committee with long years of experience in real estate litigation came to the conclusion that it was an impediment to development and freedom of ownership. In general, it is a never-ending source of quarrels and disputes, and often leads to extortion. . . . In any case, we have already expanded the categories of eligibility beyond what the Landau Committee recommended, and I see no justification for adding more.48

Non-religious Knesset members on both sides of the political spectrum welcomed the repeal of the clause for the reasons cited above, and especially its negative impact on the purchase and sale of land. MK Yosef Kushnir of Mapam said: “The bill is doing a good thing in cutting back on bar metzra rights, which were being misused and sometimes brought commerce to a standstill.”49 MK Yohanan Bader of Herut, a champion of private enterprise and spokesman for the middle class and capitalists in the Knesset, was a natural opponent of preemption in land purchase and demanded the termination of any such rights that remained in force. “While the bill does contain vestiges of Ottoman law, especially in the realm of preemption, it has been significantly whittled down. Even so, there is still too much of it for my taste,” Bader said. “The mechanism of preemption, in particular when the only reason for exercising it is to hinder a transaction, is a very disruptive system. . . .” Interestingly, Bader, who praised the bill for being based on the solid foundations of Roman law rather than the hazy circumlocutions of English law, innocently suggested that some MK might deem it preferable to use Jewish Law, “but I cannot say, not being an expert in Jewish Law.”50 As we have seen, Liberal MK Shneor Zalman Abramov did not reject dina debar metzra in principle either. On the contrary, he believed there was justice in such a law, “although the manner in which it was carried 47 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2132 (June 22, 1964). 48 Ibid., 2480 (July 27, 1964). Also see ibid., 2343, remarks of MK Porush, who admits that neither Mandatory nor Israeli courts were happy with the preemption clause in Ottoman law and tried not to lend it credence. 49 Ibid., 2272 (July 7, 1964). 50 Ibid., 2326 (July 13, 1964).

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out [in Ottoman law] was deplorable.” Under the Ottomans, “it became so entangled and bogged down in rules that in most cases it became an impediment and a nuisance, and was unfairly exploited.”51 While the common thread in most arguments against dina debar metzra was that it hindered free trade, MK Nahum Nir-Rafalkes of Achdut HaAvodah-Poalei Zion offered a rationale that dovetailed with his socialist outlook: “I have no interest in amassing land reserves or someone owning a lot of property, so what do I need this for?”52 Far from being an admirer of Jewish tradition, Nir-Rafalkes pronounced Jewish Law irrelevant, hypothetical, tied to religious faith, and steeped in a culture that no longer existed. Addressing his remarks to MK Gross of Agudat Yisrael, he said: I will get back to you, MK Gross, with that Halakha of yours. . . . Let me ask MK Gross, who thinks that chazaqa [presumptive title] should last three years because Maimonides says so: What does Halakha have to do with science? We know Maimonides was a physician. If so, one might say we should follow his counsel on medicine. MK Gross, are you saying that Jewish Law is also relevant to mathematics? . . . MK Gross, we can talk about logic, but leave Maimonides out of it. When I was twelve, I learned about squaring the circle in Bava Batra, and I remember how confused I was. You divide the circle into strips and then divide up the remainder, too. Should we do it that way today, or heed the scientists? Nowadays we don’t talk about Halakha. If we set Maimonides and Halakha aside, we can see whether three years makes sense or not. So don’t tell me tales about bar metzra. . . . I must say, section 64 is very odd. MK Shaki is relying on Halakha, and the truth of the matter is that I like this Halakha—not because it is Halakha but because it makes sense.

To Yaakov Meridor’s interjection “Is that a hand for Halakha?” Nir-Rafalkes replied, “I think it is.”53 As intimated above, the religious MKs were confident that Jewish Law was the answer in cases where the preemption principle was liable to be abused: The rabbis solved the problem by reining in the rights of the bar meztra. MK Moshe Kelmer of the NRP, who served as director of Mishab (Mishkenot HaBoneh) Housing Construction & Development Company, 51 Ibid., 2278 (July 7, 1964). 52 Ibid., 2330 (July 13, 1964). 53 Ibid., 2329–2330.

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which built residential housing for the religious sector, and was thus attuned to the demands of the real estate market, emphasized: While first rights in Ottoman law were seen as slowing down the economy, if Jewish Law was applied . . . the neighbor could be given first priority without keeping the vendor from selling. . . . If there are neighbors and one of them has plans to sell, the best scenario is for him to go ahead and do so, while offering his neighbor the opportunity to buy. If you say: The neighbor can dupe him, only promising to buy, Maimonides addresses this in Laws Concerning Neighbors (14:1): “He who wants to sell his field brings his ben hametzar [partner] and a prospective buyer to court and tells the ben hametzar: If you want to buy it for such and such a price, do so—but if not, step aside and the other will take it. In that case, the ben hametzar no longer has a claim. He must pay up immediately or forfeit his right. If he [the ben hametzar] says: I will try to raise the money, do not believe him. If the man is well-off and has the money, the seller can wait for him to fetch it; if he is not, do not listen: He is just being evasive.”54

MK Shaki, his party colleague, proposed that the law distinguish between preemption to a bar metzra who needs the land to house his family and someone who only wants it to increase his assets. In such a case, it is possible that a client who is not a neighbor but desperately needs an apartment to live in would be given precedence over a bar metzra. According to Shaki, this distinction already existed in Jewish Law.55 However, the Knesset did not alter its opposition to dina bar metzra despite these clarifications.

Ownership based on chezqat shanim In practice, Chapter 5 of the 1964 Draft Land Bill states that when the land has been formally registered and it is clear from the records who the owners are, no other party can claim occupancy rights on the grounds of long-term residency, or chezqat shanim. However, in cases of unregistered land, when ownership is not absolutely clear, title based on the principle of chezqat shanim may be granted. Thus a person who has lived on the land and used it without interruption for thirty years, with no proof of taking it by force or deception or any other devious means, or a person mistakenly identified 54 Ibid., 2275–2276 (July 7, 1964). See also ibid., 2281, 2284. 55 Rabbenu Asher, Talmud Bavli, Bava Metzia 108; Beit Yosef, Tur Choshen Mishpat 175. See Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2283 (July 7, 1964).

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as the owner who has occupied the land without malicious intent, using it as owners do for a period of fifteen consecutive years, can ask the court to recognize his ownership citing the principle of chezqat shanim.56 In presenting the bill to the Knesset for first reading, the Justice Minister specifically addressed this principle: In the past, when there was no organized system of land registry and verifying ownership was not simple, having a statutory period of limitations was a stabilizing force in property law. In our economic and cultural milieu, real estate transactions are generally accompanied by written contracts and updated registries, thereby eliminating most of the uncertainty with respect to the identity of landowners and their holdings. So the principle of acquisitional rights based on chezqat shanim, one of our most progressive laws, has disappeared. This is one of the objectives of the new law—to address the fact that much of the land in this country is not formally registered (although some old-time logs exist), and many times there are questions about who the property really belongs to. The Landau Committee concluded that there is no choice but to reinstate some form of chezqat shanim. Based on the recommendations of this committee, chezqat shanim will not be applicable for registered land. In the case of unregistered land, fifteen years of adverse possession and evidence in old records will permit a claim of ownership. If there is no record, or the possessor cannot prove good faith, title can be claimed after thirty consecutive years of possession unless the original owner brings evidence that the possessor was not acting in good faith. It seems to us that after thirty years, there is no justification for demanding proof of good faith. Therefore the possessor will be granted title unless the original owner can show otherwise.57

Under Jewish Law, occupancy of land for three years—combined with the claim of having purchased the land or received it as a gift—confers ownership.58 The Shulchan Arukh, for example, states that chazaqa is established when a person uses the land and benefits from it on a daily basis for a period of three years without anyone protesting.59 With chezqat shanim frequently invoked in Jewish legal literature, it was only natural for the religious MKs to demand that the new law align itself with, or at 56 57 58 59

Reshumot, June 15, 1964, 180–181. Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2131 (June 22, 1964). See, for example, Haim H. Cohn, The Law [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1996). Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 140:7.

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least retain some semblance of, Jewish Law. Moshe Kelmer of the NRP proposed that fifty years of adverse possession entitle the occupant to ownership rights even for registered lands, despite the fact that three years was sufficient according to Halakha.60 MK Gross of Agudat Yisrael called for chezqat shanim to be adopted in full, with ownership rights conferred after three years whether or not the property was registered. He argued  that a three-year period was still relevant today, even if the principle was centuries old: Section 22 of the bill states that chezqat shanim is only applicable after thirty years. . . . Not only does this go against all logic, but it is cruel. What does the original law say? Allow me to quote Maimonides, the Great Eagle: “If, however, Reuven brings witnesses who testify that he partook of the produce of this field for three consecutive years and benefited from it in its entirety in the manner in which any person would benefit from that field, we allow Reuven to maintain possession. . . .” The Maggid says that if Reuven produces solid proof of using the land for three years, it is not necessary for him to swear that he purchased the land or received it as a gift. According to Maimonides, we do not ask Reuven why he has no papers proving the land was purchased or given to him because such documents will be discarded after three years if no one has protested. So if a person has derived benefit from the land and it has been in his possession for three years, he enjoys chazaqa over it. Under the proposed law, he would have to wait thirty years, which could lead to paradoxical and absurd situations. I will give you a good example: Someone buys a plot of land. For whatever the reason, he does not register it in the land registry bureau and he still owes a small sum of money. Meanwhile, the seller goes abroad and the matter is forgotten. The buyer holds the land for fifteen, or even twenty-nine years. Then, after twenty-nine years, the seller sues the buyer, and the contract signed in the presence of a lawyer cannot be found. So after all this time, the seller can confiscate the property or extort money from him. Is such a thing logical? Wouldn’t three years make more sense? As Maimonides points out, a person must hold on to his bills for three years, which is logical. If we say thirty years, we are opening the door to all kinds of lawsuits and abuse.61

60 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2276 (July 7, 1964). 61 Ibid., 2282.

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MK Porush of Agudat Yisrael also lamented the fact that chezqat shanim was disregarded in drawing up the new law: Aside from a major discrepancy in the time element, chezqat shanim was invoked to assist someone who had bought land but lost the deed, whereas the new proposal did not even require an ownership claim.62 Moreover, even if the possessor was illegitimately listed as the owner of the property and the land was occupied in good faith for fifteen years, he could become the legal owner on the strength of chezqat shanim alone. The Shulchan Arukh (Choshen Mishpat 146:9) clearly states otherwise, Porush said: “A person may have a chazaqa because he holds the deed, but if the deed is found to be false, the chazaqa becomes null and void, and the field with all its fruit goes back to the original owners.” It makes no difference if the person in question is the first purchaser or someone who purchased the field from him, again in good faith, because the chazaqa is merely evidence of a claim. It is not a rubber stamp, in the sense that “he who transgresses once and repeats it, regards the act as permissible.”63

Porush concluded bitterly: “With all that I have said, I still have not covered all the ways in which the bill deviates from Torah law—deviations that have no justification.”64 The non-religious parliamentarians generally disagreed with Kelmer, Gross and Porush. In the dina debar metzra debate, as we have seen, MK Nir-Rafalkes balked at the very suggestion that taking Jewish Law into account was some kind of obligation.65 Justice Minister Yosef, on the other hand, did not reject the possibility of referencing Jewish Law, and essentially argued that the occupancy rights provision in the bill corresponded with Jewish Law. While he had no answer for Porush, he insisted that the thirty

62 See the source of this argument in Talmud Bavli, Bava Batra 41a, which states: “Without a claim there is no chazaqa. How so? He says: What are you doing on my property? If he answers: No one ever contested it, this has no merit. But if he says: You sold it to me or gave it to me, or your father did so, that would be chazaqa.” 63 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2342 (July 14, 1964). See also Rakover’s references to Maimonides on the same subject, Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 67, September 16, 1968. 64 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2342 (July 14, 1964). 65 Ibid., 2329–2330 (July 13, 1964).

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and fifteen year periods cited in the bill were a modernization of the threeyear period stipulated in Jewish Law: My colleagues Gross and Shaki complained that the proposed law is not based on Torah law. In their examples, all they came up with was the difference in time spans. What I want to say is that the three-year statute of limitations was not a principle of Jewish Law, the product of “healthy logic and profound human ethics,” to quote MK Gross, but a technical imperative based on the concrete constraints of life in an underdeveloped agrarian society where most people were illiterate and it was not convenient to store documents, which in any case were written on materials that did not keep well. Under such conditions, one could not demand that a person hold on to documents and bills for more than three years. After that, the fact of uninterrupted occupancy was seen as proof of title. Is this the situation today? Is three years the most a person can keep his papers? Don’t people in our day have documents and records from fifty or a hundred years ago, and even more? . . . MK Gross talks about the cruel fate of a person who says he paid for his land in full but was negligent and never had the transaction recorded. So he lives there for twenty-eight years and during this time he also loses the deed of sale. Then the owner appears after twenty-eight years and demands the land back, but because only twenty-eight years have passed and not thirty, the purchaser has to give up the land. Would it be any less cruel if a person leaves home for three years because he has to go abroad and then comes back and finds a squatter on his land who cannot be evicted and this squatter is awarded legal ownership—and we are talking about three years, not twenty-eight?66

The debates of the CLJC, attended by the Justice Ministry lawmakers responsible for writing the bill, Nahum Rakover and Justice Landau, who was invited to clarify certain points, shed further light on the attitudes toward incorporating chezqat shanim in Israeli law. This, in spite of the fact that the committee ultimately decided to omit the whole chapter on chezqat shanim from the bill because it was only relevant until the land registry reforms were complete. One of the proposals for dealing with unregistered land discussed by the committee was adopting Ottoman law,

66 Ibid., 2481–2482 (July 27, 1964).

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which required both proof of ten-years occupancy and evidence of farming to establish ownership.67 Early on in the committee discussions, Rakover made it clear that the section on occupancy rights strayed from the tenets of Jewish Law. In the proposed law, he said, the possessor was not required to claim ownership, as MK Porush had explained in great length.68 Furthermore, any complaint lodged against the possessor during the chazaqa period cancelled the tally in Jewish Law, whereas the state did not accept mere protest and required objection to be accompanied by legal action. At the same time, Rakover explained that Jewish Law and Israeli law used a similar approach in calculating the time factor. According to the bill, any time spent on the land during a period when ownership claims are not possible for whatever the reason is deducted from the calculation. Similarly, the Talmud states that if due to the circumstances, the possessor is unaware of the objections of the owner, that period of time is not counted toward chezqat shanim.69 Responding to Rakover, committee chairman Moshe Unna and Justice Ministry advisor Dr. Uri Yadin tried to show that Jewish Law and the new legislation were not so far apart. Unna, like the Minister of Justice, argued that the time difference was not crucial: “Perhaps landowners in olden times could not be required to keep their bills of sale for more than three years, but today we can demand more.”70 When Justice Landau appeared before the committee a week later, Unna asked him: “Was there any special rationale for picking thirty years?” Landau’s reply is interesting, not to mention enlightening for our purposes: It proves that Jewish Law was not the inspiration in this case, as Unna and the Justice Minister had intimated. “Why thirty years? Because we had no established paradigm to follow. We chose it because it sounded like a very long time. It’s a standard unit of time.”71 67 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 97, January 26, 1969, remarks of A. Sapir of the Israel Land Administration. Also see Moshe Duchan, Land Laws of the State of Israel [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Achva Press, 1963), 222. Comparing the Draft Land Bill (above, note 25) and the Land Law (above, note 17), one sees that the entire section on chezqat shanim has been omitted. 68 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 80, November 19, 1968. 69 Ibid. See also Talmud Bavli, Bava Batra 38aff. 70 Ibid. 71 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 81, November 24, 1968. Also see ibid., MK Yosef Shofman’s comment, ignored by Landau, that thirty years was the period stipulated in French law.

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While Yadin did not insist that the bill was modeled on Jewish Law, he emphasized that it shared certain features with Jewish Law, such as the requirement that possessors conduct themselves as owners during the chezqat shanim period. Rakover suggested that they “go one step further” in aligning state law with Jewish Law by making an ownership claim a prerequisite, in addition to long-term residency. MK Baruch Osnia pointed out that if such a claim were mandatory, it would not be possible to transfer ownerless land to the state (in the Negev, for example) because Israel had never declared itself the owner of the land.72 Rakover, who was interested in the alignment of Jewish Law and state law, checked to see what the Landau Committee had concluded on this matter. He found that the committee had adopted the requirements of Jewish Law. He related these findings with some emotion: Last time I was here, I cited the Jewish legal principle that a chazaqa without a claim is not chazaqa, but after hearing Justice Landau, I thought we should look closer at the committee’s report. It turns out that this idea was not at all unfamiliar to the committee, which in fact adopted it. On page 16 of the report, we read: “For simple occupancy without the claim of ownership, the verdict will never be ownership. . . .” Later on, when the committee is describing the legal situation today, it says: “The underlying assumption here (section 20 of the Ottoman Land Code) is that the possessor is a landowner who is having trouble proving his title to the land. Therefore the court will accept an ownership claim accompanied by external evidence of ownership.” In practice, this is what Jewish Law is saying. Moreover, the proposed bill drafted by the Landau Committee states that chazaqa without a claim is not chazaqa.

Yadin replied: “This idea has not disappeared from the government bill,” and it is articulated in the requirement in the relevant section of the bill that the possessor show conduct consistent with ownership in addition to long-term residence. This is because “we cannot demand that the possessor make some claim to establish his right when there is no one to whom he can address the claim. He can only act in a certain way. So section 22 [of the bill] sets out the condition that the possessor must use the land in the way an owner would.” Yadin explained that the claim requirement was embedded in section 22, which states that someone who possesses a 72 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 80, November 19, 1968.

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property for thirty years (or fifteen, as we shall see below) “may petition the court at any time for affirmation of ownership on the grounds of chezqat shanim.” Rakover did not accept this argument, insisting that section 22 said nothing about an ownership claim, and essentially granted “more than Jewish Law intended to grant.”73

Overhanging fruit Chapter 9 of the Draft Land Bill, which addresses relations between neighbors and preventing damage to a neighboring property, contained one section that was completely at odds with Jewish Law. According to the Justice Minister, it was included in the recommendation of the Landau Committee and was modeled on European law. The law stated that in the case of trees or other shrubs growing near a property line, fruit that overhangs the neighbor’s land belongs to the neighbor. If the bordering land is public property and accessible to the public, the fruit is free for the taking and any passerby is entitled to pluck it.74 Jewish Law ruled otherwise, as MK Shaki took pains to explain: [Shulchan Arukh,] Choshen Mishpat 167:2 states that the fruit of a tree that stands on a property line, even if it leans more to one side, is divided between the two neighbors. But the fruit of a tree that stands in the field of one neighbor and leans into the field of the other, goes entirely to the neighbor where the main body of the tree is growing. In the case of a tree on the border between two fields, its roots nourished by both, the main body of the tree belongs to both neighbors. Hence the fruit is also shared equally, even if all the foliage overhangs only one of the fields. The clause goes on to address the selfsame issue addressed in our bill. The main body of the tree is in Reuven’s field, but the branches overhang Shimon’s field. Jewish Law gives precedence to the main body of the tree, so the fruit goes to Reuven, not Shimon—whereas our lawmakers reach the exact opposite conclusion. In the case of a private citizen’s tree spreading into the public domain, Choshen Mishpat 260:6 states that the fruit belongs to the owner of the tree and not to passersby. Moreover, this is so even if the fruit has dropped from the tree and is scattered on the ground, unless it is the type that is easily crushed and bruised, such as figs and mulberries, in which case 73 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 82, November 26, 1968. 74 Reshumot, June 15, 1964 (Draft Land Bill of 1964, section 64).

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the owners will presumably forgo their claim and anyone who wants may take them. Hardy fruits like olives, carobs, almonds, etc. belong to the owner of the tree, and passersby may not take them. The first gemara that children study in school, Elu Metziot, teaches them this principle, unconscious abandonment (Bava Metzia 21b). The children learn that fallen fruit from a tree even in the public domain is forbidden to them, although it is clear to us that when the owners discover that the fruit has fallen, they will relinquish any claim to it. . . . And then along comes this bill and allows schoolchildren and street urchins to strip the fruit from a tree whose branches extend into the public domain. Do you have any idea how much educational damage this will cause? You will have swarms of children swooping down on trees with protruding branches and from there, clambering over fences and wreaking havoc on a handful of trees people have worked so hard to grow in the tiny yards of our neighborhoods. They will be delighted with this new state law that allows them to do what the Talmud forbids. So I propose that we accept the principle that decisions regarding overhanging branches be determined by who owns the body of the tree. This is an ancient principle which the Talmud says was introduced by Joshua bin Nun: “The rule both for a tree close to the boundary of a neighbor’s field, and for one which overhangs is that the owner brings first-fruits and makes the declaration, since it was on that condition that Joshua gave Israel possession of the land” (Bava Batra 27b). Based on this principle, the law must state that the rules for fruit are the same as for roots. . . . A neighbor cannot demand that branches be cut down just because they encroach on his property. He can do so only if they constitute a nuisance. This is consistent with Jewish Law (Choshen Mishpat 155:26–28). If the neighbor is not bothered by the overhanging branches, he is not entitled to trim them or pick the fruit, and the same holds true for branches and fruit overhanging a public space.75

The secular MKs who shared their thoughts in the plenum lauded the logic of the Jewish approach and supported its inclusion in the bill. However, they hastened to say that it was not because Jewish Law was superior in any way. It was all a matter of logic: “The truth of the matter is that I like this Halakha—not because it is Halakha but because it makes sense,” said one

75 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2283 (July 7, 1964). For quoted remarks, see ibid., 2482 (July 27, 1964).

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MK.76 “I don’t know where [this bill] is coming from, but something is not right about it. I think it needs to be amended.”77 In response to Shaki, and also, it seems, in light of the views expressed by the secular MKs, the Justice Minister made it clear that he was not against amending the law to align it with Jewish principles as long as the CLJC agreed.78 However, the CLJC decided to change only the part about fruit falling on the neighbor’s property or in the public domain. As we see from the committee protocols and the explanations of the chairman when the bill was submitted for its second and third readings, the committee adopted the Jewish legal approach with regard to fruit on the tree: Even if the branches encroached on the neighbor’s yard or the public domain, the fruit on the branches belonged to the owner of the land on which the tree was planted.79 Fallen fruit, however, belonged to the domain— public or private—into which it had fallen. The bill passed its second and third readings in this configuration. Despite Rakover’s testimony to the committee that the bill contravened Jewish Law, the committee accepted the argument of Uri Yadin, the deputy attorney general, that the bill was designed to keep neighbors from trespassing on each other’s property. MK Shofman added that it would prevent disputes. Unna, in submitting the bill for second and third readings, phrased it this way: “As long as the fruit is still on the tree, ownership of the fruit goes together with ownership of the trees. However, if the fruit falls on the property of the neighbor, there is no public mechanism by which the tree owner can enter his neighbor’s yard to gather it.”80

Land theft and self-help Sections 173–174 of the Draft Land Bill, which dealt with land theft, stated that a person who squats on land without permission must restore chazaqa to the holder of the land “even if the squatter’s right to the land supersedes that of the holder.” The holder of the land was entitled to use reasonable 76 Ibid., 2330 (July 13, 1964), remarks of MK Nir-Rafalkes of Achdut HaAvodah-Poalei Zion. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid., 2482 (July 27, 1964). 79 See glosses of the Rema, Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 167:2. 80 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 104, April 15, 1969; Divrei HaKnesset 45 (1969): 3760–3761 (July 16, 1969), Unna’s remarks.

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force to prevent trespassing or a challenge to his control, but if he used unreasonable force, he would be treated as a thief under the law, and required to return the land to the squatter.81 When the bill was brought to the Knesset for first reading, the MKs were collectively unhappy with these clauses. It was not at all clear who would decide what constituted “reasonable force,” all the more so when exceeding that measure would result in a person being charged with land theft. Such a policy could have undesirable results, they speculated, culminating in brutality and violence.82 Furthermore, If a landowner uses unreasonable force to evict a trespasser who has robbed him of his land, or forces him to leave after squatting there for more than a reasonable period of time, the landowner himself becomes a thief— heaven help us!—and not only will he be punished under criminal law, but according to section 173 he must give the house back to the squatter, who has meanwhile become a possessor and enjoys possessory rights. But we do the landowner a favor by allowing him to go to court against the trespasser occupying his house.83

Apart from the general consternation shared by most of the MKs who were present for the first reading, the religious MKs protested that sections 173–174 were wholly at odds with Jewish Law. According to Halakha, not only is the land not deemed stolen,84 but a landowner with a rightful claim who employs self-help and evicts the squatter forcibly is not required to give up his property to the one who has stolen it and go to court while the intruder sits on his land. “Do we give trespassers a reward?” asked MK Shaki.85 When the issue was brought before the CLJC, Rakover pointed out that the last item in section 173 also contravened Jewish Law: According to the bill, a person who has squatted on land without authorization from the landholder must restore chazaqa to the landholder, “even if his right to the land supersedes that of the landholder” (that is, even if he is the real 81 Reshumot, June 15, 1964 (Draft Land Bill of 1964, section 23). 82 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2272 (July 7, 1964). 83 Ibid., 2284, remarks of MK Shaki. Also see ibid., 2329 (July 13, 1964), remarks of MK Nir-Rafalkes. 84 Ibid., 2329 (July 13, 1964), remarks of MK Gross. 85 Ibid., 2284 (July 7, 1964), remarks of MK Shaki. Also see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Sanhedrin 2:12.

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owner). In Jewish Law, the possessor is given a chance to prove that he is the real owner, but in the meantime he can continue to reside on the land. He is not required to leave first and then prove his claim. “If the possessor’s title to the land supersedes that of the landholder, which he must prove, he is not obligated to restore chazaqa to the person who has robbed him of it,” Rakover explained. ”Swiss law follows the same principle. If a person squats on someone’s land, he is evicted, but if he can prove that his claim to the land is stronger than the claim of the person from whom he has seized the land, he will not be evicted.”86 While Yadin of the Justice Ministry supported the wording of the bill because of the lengthy period that could pass between the “theft” and the possessor’s proof of his claim, Rakover was adamant that the committee try to understand the Jewish legal perspective: Let’s take an extreme case and see what we end up with—a court order or a title deed. According to the proposed clause, the police will first of all evict the owner. I don’t think we want that. None of us wants to see the owner evicted when there is no dispute over ownership; we would rather see him actually prove his entitlement. With this law you get the opposite.87

Although Yadin was won over by Rakover’s arguments, the committee still wavered and asked Landau, who had supported the bill in principle, to provide further clarification.88 When Landau appeared before the CLJC several months later, he emphasized the educational message that he felt was being conveyed regarding the fate of a landowner who resorted to selfhelp and attempted to repossess property without a court decision: I have an opinion in this matter, and it is close to what the law is saying. I  wrote a judgment on this. [“A vigorous response by the court in cases where an individual tries to take the law into his own hands teaches citizens to seek peaceful means of resolving land disputes.”89] . . . I would 86 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 70, September 17, 1968, remarks of Rakover; ibid., protocol no. 271, September 9, 1969, remarks of Unna and Rakover. Rakover again draws a similarity between Swiss and Jewish law: “A person who takes any immovable property from the possessor thereof . . . shall return it to the possessor. But if he can immediately prove a superior claim over the immovable property, he can refuse to surrender it.” 87 Ibid., protocol no. 70, September 17, 1968. 88 Ibid. 89 CA 389/64 Kroinsky v. Goldstein [1965] IsrSC 19(1) 225, 229. Landau’s opinion was later quoted by MK Arazi during the deliberations in the plenum, Divrei HaKnesset 45 (1969): 3810 (July 17, 1969).

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point out that this is the only time I ever dared to criticize our mentor and teacher, Dr. Zmora. . . . So the question is: Why not restore the land immediately? I believe we need to educate people not to be “grabbers.” They have to understand that it’s not worth it. For example, you barge into an apartment you say is yours. The rental contract has expired so you throw the tenant out together with his furniture. He can prove the contract is not up. . . . If so, then the first thing to do is restore the situation to what it was before, to the “possessory” stage. It could be that the owner will then file his own possessory claim, and the claims of both parties will be investigated simultaneously. In any case, I would not want to give up this provision. It’s a matter of policy.90

After listening to Justice Landau’s explanations, which did not convince the entire committee,91 and Rakover’s arguments in favor of Jewish Law, which was said to correspond with Swiss law, the committee elected to reword section 173. The amendment, which followed Jewish legal practice, was approved in the bill’s second and third readings. Committee chairman, Moshe Unna, presented its conclusions to the plenum: Section 19 of the law states that a person who evicts a possessor by force . . . must return the land to the possessor. When the evictor himself is a thief, returning the land to the possessor is mandatory. But when the evictor has genuine title to the land, several approaches are possible. According to Roman law, the evictor must first restore the land to the possessor, even if he has stolen it (as Justice Landau advocates). The Jewish legal approach is that if the possessor can prove that he is the real owner of the land, he does not need to return it. The government bill emphasized in section 173 that giving the land back is mandatory even if the possessor’s rights over it supersede those of the landholder. Most of the committee members favored the Jewish legal approach—not out of love for Jewish Law, but because there is no point in evicting the real owner and forcing him to go to court to recover his 90 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 81, November 24, 1968, Landau’s remarks. Also see ibid., protocol no. 271, June 9, 1969, remarks of Aronovsky of the Justice Ministry who is critical of Landau’s insistence that the law is highly educational and will teach citizens not to take the law into their own hands. 91 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 81, November 24, 1968, remarks of MKs Osnia and Unna. Osnia said: “I share the view of the chairman; in other words, I oppose the final paragraph of section 173. I am not against the principle of the thief being obligated to restore the landholder’s chazaqa. My argument is that you cannot force a person not to use every means at his disposal to recover what is his, which might otherwise be lost. It is his property at stake.”

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own property. Therefore it has been decided that the court is authorized to simultaneously examine the claims of the two parties and settle the issue of chazaqa in a just manner, under such conditions as it sees fit, until ownership rights are resolved.92

This summation apparently convinced committee members like Yitzchak Klinghoffer of the Liberal Party, which supported the adoption and incorporation of principles of Jewish Law in Israeli jurisprudence in principle if they were found relevant for modern times. Klinghoffer declared: “I understand that the policy introduced here comes from Roman law. What interests me is what Jewish Law says on this issue. If the solution that Jewish Law offers is consistent with modern life and it is possible to integrate it harmoniously in our law system, we should take this as an incentive for following Jewish Law.”93 Other members of the committee were convinced by Rakover’s argument that Swiss law and Jewish Law saw eye to eye on this issue.94 The amended clause was as follows: “Whoever dispossesses the possessor of land otherwise than pursuant to section 18(b) must return the land to the possessor. However, this provision does not detract from the authority of the court to adjudicate the rights of both parties at the same time, and the court may award possession as it deems just and under such conditions as it deems appropriate, pending the final decision on the merits.”95 Also in the spirit of Jewish Law,96 certain changes were made in section 174 that authorized a landowner to use reasonable force against someone who encroaches on his property as long as it is done within a reasonable period of time after the violation, as set out in section 18(b) 92 Divrei HaKnesset 45 (1969): 3759 (July 16, 1969). 93 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 271, June 9, 1969, remarks of Klinghoffer. 94 Ibid., remarks of Klinghoffer and Rakover. 95 See Reshumot, The Book of Laws, July 27, 1969 (Land Law, 1969, section 19). Also see the objections of MKs Reuven Arazi and Zalman Abramov, who wanted to revert to the old version of the bill because the version that was accepted “allows for the possibility of taking the law into one’s one hands. In the world’s most modern legal systems, self-help and the use of force to assert rights are strictly against the law.” See Divrei HaKnesset 45 (1969): 3810 (July 17, 1969); ibid., 3811–3812, Unna’s detailed response; Elon, Jewish Law, vol. 3, 1436–1443. 96 As implied by Rakover’s explanation, in Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 70, July 17, 1968.

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of the law: “Where a person occupies any property unlawfully, the lawful possessor thereof may use a reasonable amount of force to take it from the occupier, provided he does so within what, in the circumstances of the case, is a reasonable amount of time.” This deviated from the original wording, in which no time limit was specified.97 A limit was introduced because not acting within that window of time showed that the landowner was not being harmed by the property remaining in the trespasser’s hands until the case was legally resolved. This ultimately removed much of the sting from the permission to use force. The bill further stated that if it became necessary to sever co-ownership of a property and the court determined that dividing it would cause significant loss to one or both partners, the court could order the sale of the property.98 This, too, was in keeping with Jewish Law, Rakover told the CLJC: The Shulchan Arukh states that if two partners wish to split a house and one of them stands to lose more than twenty percent of the value as a result of this action, the split cannot be forced on him.99

Conclusion Legislation is a process of decision-making that is shaped by lawmakers from different echelons. The decision itself (that is, the final version of the law) is a product of their views and opinions, from their core beliefs to outlooks that have been adopted as a result of mutual persuasion (which is an acknowledged and essential part of the decision-making process). Of course, the authority and influence—moral, public, political, scientific, or statutory—of the legislators taking part in the process, also figure into the equation. Approving laws, for example, is the exclusive prerogative of Knesset members, who can scuttle a bill drafted by the finest legal scholars for any reason they wish. The opposite is also true. The most seemingly articulate and rational bill can be changed entirely after review by a Knesset committee. At the same time, the bills are not without power of their own, considering how much preparatory work has gone into them. The Land Law, 1969 passed through a series of preparatory stages— in effect, a process of decision-making on different echelons—that went 97 See Reshumot, The Book of Laws, July 27, 1969 (Land Law, 1969, section 18[b]), and Reshumot, June 15, 1964 (Draft Land Bill of 1964, section 174). 98 See Reshumot, June 15, 1964 (Draft Land Bill of 1964, section 86). 99 Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 171:5, Rema’s commentary.

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on for twenty years. Thus the time factor in itself is not insignificant. First a committee of experts chaired by Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau worked on the law for the better part of a decade (1949–1959). Then it was turned over to the Justice Ministry for another five years. The first reading in the Knesset took three months. After four years of revision by the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee (1965–1969), the bill passed its second and third readings in the Knesset in July 1969. In all of these decision-making forums, the applicability of Jewish Law remained prominent on the agenda. The Landau Committee, whose chairman without doubt influenced its recommendations, refrained from adopting Jewish Law as the legal infrastructure for Israeli law for several reasons. Landau discusses them in an article he published in 1966. First of all, the committee did not want to jolt the foundations of the existing law through the introduction of drastic changes or blanket substitution of one legal system for another. It favored changing the law moderately by incorporating eclectic components from different legal codes that were deemed appropriate. Partially adopting Jewish Law was seen as problematic due to the “monolithic nature of rabbinical law, which makes piecemeal adoption seem a half-measure, satisfactory to no one.” Mainly, however, Landau was convinced that Jewish Law was not amenable to modern life.100 Of course, one could challenge him and say that this was not sufficient for vetoing the inclusion of Jewish principles in Israel’s land law.101 One could go further and ask whether the committee had looked at the evolution of Jewish Law with an eye to its modernization over time. For our purposes, however, it is important to understand that these were underlying factors in the committee’s recommendation to bypass Jewish Law, and this had an effect, even a decisive one, on the Justice Ministry’s wording of the law. Furthermore, the fact that Landau wrote in 1966 about why his committee did not adopt Jewish Law as a matter of policy shows that it is simplistic to attribute this decision to ignorance of Jewish Law. It was the Landau Committee that advised against incorporating dina debar metzra, a key principle in Jewish Law, on the grounds that it was outdated and, like the preemption rights provided in Ottoman law, encumbered real estate transactions, sparked disputes and held 100 Moshe Landau, “Legislative Trends in the Land Code Bill, 1964,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 16 (1966): 136. 101 See Elon’s arguments in Elon, Jewish Law, vol. 3, 1437.

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back development. Landau and his colleagues knew this from personal experience, as judges during the Mandate period and even afterwards, when Ottoman laws remained in force. At the same time, they recognized the importance of rapid growth as the new state evolved. This combination— past experience with preemption versus awareness of the country’s present and future needs—shaped the committee’s belief that dina debar metzra was not applicable. However, the committee was not aware that the rabbis realized that dina debar metzra could be an impediment and prepared an antidote, as elucidated by MK Kelmer.102 Landau’s opposition to someone taking the law into his own hands no matter what the circumstances, clearly an extreme position, also harked back to his view of Halakha as incompatible with modern times. From Landau’s perspective, it was a matter of educating the public. His opinion was that someone who had unlawfully seized land that had been taken from him must leave even if he could show that his title to the land was greater than that of the other party. This ran counter to Jewish Law, which allowed a person squatting on his own land to remain there while trying to prove ownership. Landau never veered from this line, even when shown that Swiss law and Jewish Law concurred on this issue, and his trusted mentor, Justice Moshe Zmora, and others disagreed with him. In the case of overhanging branches and fruit falling onto the neighbor’s property, the Landau Committee also ruled out following Jewish Law, adopting European legislation instead. The stance of the committee was presumably in line with Yadin’s presentation to the CLJC, which took a negative view of entering the neighbor’s yard to collect the fruit. Again, one presumes that the committee did not see Jewish Law, which permitted entry to harvest fruit, as relevant for modern times, believing that the provision would only lead to quarrelling and complications. In contrast to these three instances where Jewish Law was rejected, the committee accepted the principle of chezqat shanim, which required a claim of ownership together with long-term chazaqa to have one’s title to the land acknowledged. Here Jewish Law was deemed sensible and in step with modern life. In fact, one of the major innovations of the Landau Committee was its definition of “land” in the real estate sense. The committee recommended that the legal concept of land and land ownership 102 See also Rakover’s remarks about Maimonides in Rakover, Maimonides and the Law, 497–499.

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be amended to include all the physical structures built on it and anything permanently affixed to it.103 Under Ottoman law, one could own the land and the structures attached to it separately. This amendment corresponded with Maimonides’s decision that “Anything affixed to the land is like land and sold with it.”104 The Landau Committee’s policy on the application of Jewish Law fell on responsive ears in the Justice Ministry. The door was already open, so to speak, after the ministry had reached similar decisions on the adoption of Jewish Law during the 1950s. Israeli lawmakers basically adopted an eclectic approach, choosing whatever laws seemed good to them from law codes around the world, with Jewish Law as a priority only in cases where it was judged economically and socially sound for our day.105 Therefore it was not surprising that the bill drafted by the Justice Ministry was largely based on the recommendations of the Landau Committee, beyond the fact that the committee was formed to provide input for the bill. In each of the issues discussed above—selling one’s land to a neighbor, land theft and squatters’ rights, overhanging branches and harvesting fallen fruit—the bill prepared by the Justice Ministry was in accord with the committee’s recommendations, and inconsistent with Jewish Law. Unlike Landau, who did have a background in Jewish Law, the legislators and senior Justice Ministry officials knew very little on the subject, and the ways of the Talmud were foreign to them, to put it mildly. Jewish Law was not on their syllabus in law school. Furthermore, Yaakov Meron, advisor on Arab legal affairs at the Justice Ministry for many years, states that Uri Yadin, one of the ministry’s leading legislators for decades, regarded Jewish Law as “rigid, inflexible, almost devoid of life, and in some respects oldfashioned, whose guidelines could be unreasonable and inappropriate.”106 Hence the predominant view at the ministry with regard to incorporating Jewish Law was clear. A counterweight to this view was offered by the ministry-appointed advisor on Jewish Law, a position held by Menachem Elon and his assistant 103 Reshumot, June 15, 1964 (Draft Land Bill of 1964, section 178). 104 Mishneh Torah, Laws of Sales 1:17. Also see Cohn, The Law, 882, who misquotes Maimonides; Rakover, Maimonides and the Law, 433. 105 Elon, “Jewish Law in State Jurisprudence,” 33–34, 49. 106 Yaacov Meron, A Comparative View of Muslim Law [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2001), 9. Meron bases himself on Aharon Barak and Tana Shpanitz (eds.), Sefer Uri Yadin (In Memoriam: Uri Yadin) [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Bursi Press, 1990), vol. 1, 341–342.

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Nahum Rakover in 1962–1964, when the bill was being worked on.107 Later, Rakover took over and served as head of the department for many years.108 Elon and Rakover, both jurists and respected scholars of Jewish Law, did their best to incorporate Jewish Law in the bill. This was not an easy task, given the line-up of senior Justice Ministry officials who preferred to use the European legislation they knew as a model and regarded the judgments handed down in local courts as more relevant than Jewish Law, which they saw as archaic and unsuitable. Echoes of Rakover’s bid to promote Jewish Law, which continued at meetings of the CLJC after failing in the Justice Ministry (evoking the displeasure of ministry officials),109 can be seen, for example, in his debate with Dr. Yadin about the chezqat shanim clause.110 When the bill was written, Rakover’s proposed wording, which followed Jewish Law, was rejected in favor of the wording of Justice Ministry legislators. The inferior status accorded to Rakover’s proposal—in other words, Jewish Law—is evident in the explanatory notes appended to the bill: “The law hereby proposed is largely based on the recommendations of the Landau Committee. It takes its inspiration from the legal system and rulings of the courts in our country, based on the finest principles of European jurisprudence, as well as core principles of Jewish land law updated to conform to the new realities.”111 Just from reading this passage one learns something about the attitude toward Jewish Law: Not only is Jewish Law mentioned last, but the legislators are selective about what they include and what they discard as unsuited to modern life.112 Rakover’s achievements in amending the Draft Land Bill are hard to measure because the documentation has not survived. We do know that he was less than successful in convincing legislators to accept the Jewish view on dina debar metzra, land theft and self-help, overhanging fruits and even chezqat shanim, on which the bill diverged from the recommendations of 107 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2126–2127 (June 22, 1964), remarks of Justice Minister Dov Yosef; Knesset Archives, file gimmel/5716/11, letter from Menachem Elon to director-general of the Justice Ministry, February 8, 1960; ibid., letter from Elon to A. Rubinstein, deputy director-general of the Justice Ministry, January 14, 1962; ibid., letter from Elon to Rubinstein, October 1962. 108 See above, note 3. 109 Prof. Nahum Rakover, oral interview, August 8, 2001; Shmuel Shilo, “On the Status of Jewish Law in Israel” [Hebrew], Dinei Yisrael 5 (1974): 255–258. 110 See detailed discussion above. 111 Reshumot, June 15, 1964 (Draft Land Bill of 1964). 112 See above.

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the Landau Committee. On the other hand, he was successful in at least one issue: severance of co-ownership that could lead to considerable loss to one or both co-owners. The bill stated that if a co-owner sought to terminate co-ownership of a property capable of partition and the court agreed that partition would impact negatively on the other co-owner, it could order the property sold. This corresponded with Jewish Law, and the same was true for the sections of the bill dealing with the ownership of land extending below the surface and into its airspace; the need for the consent of all co-owners for nonstandard use of shared property; the right of co-owners to demand severance of the co-ownership; and the preemption right of heirs in the event that one of them seeks to sell his share.113 As learned from the talk with Prof. Rakover, the religious MKs would come to him for updates on what Jewish Law had to say about various issues in bills. In their remarks in the Knesset plenum and before the CLJC, these MKs tried to persuade their listeners to support the inclusion of Jewish legal principles on a broader scale.114 It was part of their ideological outlook to strengthen the bond between Judaism, Jewish sources and the state. In their speeches, they freely quoted from Jewish texts. There was very little difference in this respect between the MKs of the NRP and the ultraOrthodox parties, and the fact that the head of the CLJC was a religious Jew was not without significance. While this needs to be examined more closely, one can see certain differences in the demands of the religious Knesset members depending on the religious sector they represented. The ultra-Orthodox MKs took a more categorical approach: They demanded that the law be based on Talmud, the Shulchan Arukh, and Maimonides—sources that they saw as timeless. MK Porush of Agudat Yisrael argued that the entire Torah was a code to live by.115 His colleague, MK Gross, opined that land laws were an excellent opportunity to incorporate Torah laws, which were logical, humane, and as relevant today as they were in the past. He was critical of the attempt to bypass Jewish texts on the pretext that the laws were ancient and outdated,116 and claimed there were many instances in which the old laws were perfectly adequate. This was his rationale for supporting a 113 Cohn, The Law, 882; Rakover, Maimonides and the Law, 433, 439–441, 448–453, 458– 462, 494–496. 114 Prof. Nahum Rakover, oral interview, August 8, 2001. 115 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2343 (July 14, 1964). 116 Ibid., 2281–2282 (July 7, 1964).

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three-year period to establish chezqat shanim rather than thirty years, as called for by the bill.117 The national-religious MKs took a more moderate approach. They were aware of the need to adapt Jewish Law to existing conditions, as attested to by the views of Moshe Unna, chairman of the CLJC committee, who was a member of the NRP and a leader of the Religious Kibbutz Movement. Unna and his NRP colleagues urged legislators to study the evolution of Jewish property law over the years to see how it could be updated to suit modern needs.118 The views of the secular Knesset members, including the Justice Minister, on weaving Jewish legal principles into Israeli property law were not uniform. The same was true for Jewish Law being adopted in other laws and in Israeli law as a whole. Some took an extreme position, rejecting Jewish Law in a dismissive or distinctly anti-religious manner. An example of this are MK Nir-Rafalkes’s remarks to MK Porush, which poke fun at Talmudic logic.119 Other secular Knesset members insinuated that Jewish Law was no better than the Ottoman law code they were working to change: In fact, it was even more archaic than Ottoman law and thus inherently flawed. Justice Minister Dov Yosef alludes to this in his statement that Ottoman legislation was geared to a primitive society that operated according to Muslim religious law and “contained the seeds of land laws that preceded Islam. . . .”120 It is hard to miss his intimation that Ottoman land law borrowed portions of Jewish land law and the primitive civilization to which he refers could equally be the Jews. It is also apparent that most of the secular MKs—who constituted the majority in the Knesset when the bill was introduced for its first reading, when it was discussed by the CLJC and when it reached its second and third readings—did not know Jewish Law, or any other law. They were not lawyers and relied on the reports of the Landau Committee, the work of the Justice Ministry before the bill was brought to the Knesset, and the deliberations of the CLJC, which included consulting with professionals and Justice Landau. They did not oppose the incorporation of Jewish Law—and in some cases, were even in favor of it—if it could be adapted to modern conditions or shown to correspond with accepted legal codes in other countries. MK Klinghoffer, 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid., 2283–2284. 119 Ibid., 2329–2330 (July 13, 1964). 120 Ibid., 2127 (June 22, 1964).

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for example, was less impressed with the Roman sources of the law and held that Jewish Law might have relevance: “If the solution that Jewish Law offers fits for modern life and it is possible to integrate it harmoniously in our law system, we should take this as an incentive for following Jewish Law,” he said.121 Those with a closer connection to the world of law, like MK Yohanan Bader, who was a lawyer by profession, were not familiar with Jewish Law, but they did have a background in other legal systems in which the bill was anchored. Bader lauded the bill for its correspondence with universal law: Important strides have been made here . . . in basing the law as a whole on legislation that has undergone a lengthy process of development, from Lex Duodecim Tabularum and the Roman jurists of the first century, to the jurists of the third century, Justinian’s codification, Glossa Ordinaria, Bartolus and Baldus, the great canonists of the Catholic Church, the reception of Roman law, and finally codification in the eighteenth century. The current bill conjures up associations with this monumental enterprise in every line. For me personally, this throwback to the cradle of my legal education is a great pleasure. It is all understandable to me and all close to my heart. I think this is a good thing: The fog of common law has been replaced by the healthy tenets of Roman law. Some Knesset member may claim that Jewish Law is a better replacement, but I cannot say, not being an expert in Jewish Law.122

In mid-July 1969, after two decades of preparatory work, the Land Law passed its second and third readings in the format submitted to the Knesset plenum by the CLJC. This version was quite different from the one approved in the first reading. All opposition to the CLJC version was overruled. In his preliminary remarks to the plenum, CLJC chairman Moshe Unna deliberately emphasized that the bill we are introducing today (the committee’s version) has adopted many principles of Jewish Law. The government-sponsored bill was already heavily influenced by Jewish Law. During the committee debates, we were assisted by the advisor on Jewish Law of the Justice Ministry, and in many cases, the committee preferred the Jewish legal principle over the proposal set out in the blue book [the bill].123

121 Knesset Archives, meetings of the CLJC, protocol no. 271, June 9, 1969. 122 Divrei HaKnesset 40 (1964): 2326 (July 13, 1969). 123 Ibid., 3756 (July 16, 1969).

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As a Knesset member representing the NRP who supported adopting principles of Jewish Law deemed applicable to the modern era, Unna used his authority as chairman of the committee to promote the inclusion of Jewish Law in the final version. There is no question that Unna’s claim of adopting “many principles of Jewish Law” was exaggerated. It is also clear, as we have seen above, that his statement about the heavy influence of Jewish Law in the government proposal was not entirely accurate. It is possible that these declarations were motivated by political interest, that is, a nod to the powerful religious electorate. Even so, the committee voted for the inclusion of Jewish Law and was able to push through fundamental changes in the bill and the Landau Committee report that affected policy on land theft and self-help (an issue about which Landau had felt very strongly and worded accordingly), chezqat shanim (although the section was eventually omitted for other reasons), the laws on overhanging branches and fruit that falls on a neighboring property, severing co-ownership of land, and more.

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The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

The phenomenon of “holy places” has been researched by numerous disciplines, from cultural geography and science of religion to history and sociology. It has also been the subject of multidisciplinary studies. Scholars have sought an answer to a broad array of questions: How does a site become sacred to a certain population? Who claims ownership of the site? Has its holiness persisted over time? Has it become a magnet for pilgrimages? By whom? What rituals are performed there? What measures have the authorities instated to safeguard and preserve the site? A site does not become holy unless human beings define it as such. Human beings invest it with content and spiritual meaning, determine its function and decide what is permitted or forbidden to do there. Even a completely neutral site can become a holy place, instantaneously or over time, if human beings endow it with special content—holiness—and treat it as distinct and sacred. This is what happened to an ordinary residence at 770 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York.1 The house was built in 1933 by a doctor by the name of Rosenman for use as a private home and clinic.2 The house number, 770, was assigned by the municipal authorities; it is an ordinary consecutive number following the numbering 1 Zusha Wolf and Shimon Gopin, Beit Chayenu 770 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Heichal Menachem, 2004), 178. 2 Ibid., 113.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

on all city streets. In 1940, the building was purchased by the Sixth Admor (Rebbe, spiritual leader) of Chabad, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson (Rayatz) (1880–1950), father-in-law of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Ramam) (1902–1994), believed by many of his followers to be the Messiah.3 Shortly after its purchase, the house became the world center of the Chabad movement and has continued in this capacity until today. It served as the residence of Rayatz, as well as a synagogue and communal gathering place. He prayed and met with his followers there for ten years, until his death in 1950. While Ramam was not a permanent resident, 770 was his operational base for four and a half decades, until his death in 1994. At the initiative of Ramam, and later the Chabad movement at large, this commonplace building was transformed over time into more than a holy place: It became a virtual temple. In addition, special significance was attributed to the number of the house. Seven-Seventy became a symbol, imbued with profound spiritual meaning. It would not be an exaggeration to say that today, and for years now, the number itself has come to encapsulate the very spirit of Chabad: “770. These three digits contain the essence of all [Chabad’s] aspirations, hopes and dreams. All eyes gaze with longing at this number. . . . Such is 770. All the desires of mankind, everything that nourishes the soul emanates from it.”4 Due to holiness of the number 770, every follower of Chabad seeks to “have” it and use it in his daily life. So we are looking at a building that has been turned into a holy place, bearing an address that has taken on almost cosmic significance. This chapter has three goals: (a) to analyze the sanctification process of the building and house number; (b) to gain insight into how the building and number became an emblem and code for the Chabad movement; and (c) to explore the replication of the building and the transformation of its number into a sought-after “commodity.” No center of Jewish life, be it a synagogue, Jewish institution, or a saintly rabbi’s residence, has been venerated to such a degree in hundreds of years, a phenomenon we attribute to the messianic ideology of Chabad, which intensified in the days

3 Ibid., 107–116. 4 Ibid., 308–310.

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of Rayatz and gained even more momentum under Ramam.5 In any case, it was Ramam who sanctified the building and its street number, in ways both open and implicit. Consecrating the number, as we shall see, was the main tool for turning the building into a shrine. The building and the number became one inseparable entity over time, although one clearly nourished the other, increasing the holy aura of the building and inspiring followers of Chabad to build replicas of it elsewhere. At the same time, the number itself became a personal “must-have.” Rayatz died in 1950. In early 1951, his son-in-law, Ramam, also known as the Seventh Admor of Chabad, or the Last Admor, accepted the mantle of leadership. Many followers of Chabad (the “messianists”) unabashedly hail Ramam as the Messiah. In early 1992, he suffered a stroke from which he never recovered. In June 1994, he died—or disappeared, according to the messianic narrative. Studies of Chabad reveal that throughout his forty years at the helm, Ramam increased the movement’s numbers and level of activism to unprecedented heights. This period in the history of Chabad is unmatched in the rigorous efforts invested in striving to bring the Messiah. Back in 1951, upon assuming Chabad leadership, Ramam proclaimed that the current generation (his own) was the seventh generation. He later developed a midrash (interpretation of a Biblical verse) in keeping with the Chabad theology, which sees humanity as marching toward cosmic redemption according to a preconceived divine plan. This midrash, structured around a verse from Leviticus, says “kol hashviin havivin” (“all sevenths are favorites”).6 The seventh generation was beloved by God, said Ramam, because it was the generation of “ikveta demeshikha,” the last generation of the exile and the first of redemption. It had crucial tasks to carry out in bringing the Messiah. The claim that his generation was the seventh seems 5 Much has been written about the history of Chabad and its messianic ideology. For scholastic studies, as opposed to hagiography, see, for example, Hebrew Encyclopedia, vol. 17, 41–45, s.v. “Chabad”; Menachem Friedman, “Moshiach and Messianism in Chabad-Lubavitch Hassidism,” in War of Gog and Magog: Messianism and Apocalypse in Judaism, Past and Present [Hebrew], ed. David Ariel-Yoel et al. (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2001), 174–229; Yitzchak Kraus, The Seventh: Messianism in the Last Generation of Chabad [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2007); Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem M. Friedman, The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010); Dov Schwartz, Chabad’s Thought: From Beginning to End [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2010). 6 Leviticus Rabbah 29:11.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

to be linked to Ramam’s place in the hierarchy as the Seventh Admor, the count beginning with the First Admor, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady.7 The mission of the seventh generation was to complete the task of bringing down the Shekhinah (the divine presence of God), thereby enabling full divine revelation on earth. Then the Messiah would arrive, followed by redemption. But for this to happen, preparation was necessary: The world had to re-embrace religion, and that was the responsibility of the seventh generation. This is the foundational philosophy underlying Chabad’s unique form of activism since the mid-twentieth century. The role of Chabad followers was to prod every Jew into doing his part in readying the world for the Messiah. Ramam’s directive was to further this goal using a variety of tactics, including the dissemination of the wellsprings of Hasidic teaching (which the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism in the eighteenth century, considered a prerequisite for hastening the Messiah), and reaching out to Jews everywhere to bring them back to the fold. Chabad’s adoption of a philosophy known as ufaratzta, based on the biblical verse “you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south,”8 meshed with the “wellsprings” idea. It was not enough to observe the commandments within one’s own four walls. Followers of Chabad were instructed to go out into the world as emissaries, to conduct tefillin-laying campaigns and other mitzvah operations, to ensure that children received a Jewish education, and to teach the seven Noachide laws to the gentiles. All these actions were geared to preparing for the Messiah and hastening his arrival. As the years went by, Chabad activism steadily increased.9 This chapter is based primarily on the Torah teachings of Ramam and Rayatz, research studies on Ramam and the history of Chabad, and Beit Chayenu 770, a book by Rabbi Zusha Wolf and Rabbi Shimon Gopin published in 2004.10 It is divided into five sections: The first is about how the building in New York was sanctified; the second analyzes Ramam’s treatise Miqdash Meat: Zeh Beit Rabbenu SheBeBavel; the third explores the sanctification of the house number; the fourth is about replicas of the building in the Chabad community; and the fifth explores the widespread use of the number 770. 7 Kraus, The Seventh, 28. 8 From God’s blessing of Jacob, Genesis 28:14. 9 See above, note 5. 10 See Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu. Thanks are due to Rabbi Shalom Freiman, a Chabad emissary in Kfar Tavor, who helped me decipher the writings of Ramam.

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Sanctification of Beit Rayatz and Ramam in New York The sanctification of the Chabad building in New York, a phenomenon unparalleled in the history of Jewish religious architecture in modern times, is a product of the messianic ideology of Chabad, which grew stronger under Ramam. The house on 770 Eastern Parkway, purchased in 1940, became the headquarters of the Chabad movement and the private residence of Rayatz until his death ten years later, but the seeds of sanctification were planted early on. Even before the contract was signed, the house was associated with a miracle. When the neighbors heard of the plans, they met to draw up a petition and torpedo the sale. However, by divine providence, a Jewish man at the meeting got up to express his outrage: “I don’t understand how you would even dare to fight against a Jew whose whole life is dedicated to Jews and Judaism.” As he spoke, he seized the petition and ripped it to shreds. From that moment on, all opposition to the deal disappeared.11 What is interesting about this story is that we are not offered a single detail about the identity of this Jewish man. In this way, an element of mystery is added, making it similar to Hasidic stories about unidentified figures who appear out of nowhere to rescue the Jewish people in times of danger. The figure of Elijah the prophet—the embodiment of divine providence— comes to mind. Another example is connected to the Vaad, the building committee established to purchase the property, and its fundraising campaigns. On the Vaad stationery, the building was referred to as “Beit Chayenu” (“House of our Lives”), presumably on the instructions of Rayatz. This clearly alludes to the importance of the house. Furthermore, the Vaad not only spoke of fundraising for the building as a holy mission but ascribed holiness to the building itself. Its sanctity went far beyond that of synagogues and religious seminaries: This house, from which the teachings of “our holy rabbis”— meaning the teachings of Chabad—would go forth, spurring penitence and good deeds by thousands of Jews, was perceived as part of the Temple itself.12 Some Chabad rabbis even made the date of purchasing the building an annual holiday.13

11 Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 110–111. 12 Ibid., 113–114. 13 Ibid., 116.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

In the mid-1980s, when architectural analyses of the building were carried out in order to build a replica in Kfar Chabad (more on this later), the architects added their own view of the unique character of the property, which differed from those around it: One could see that the person who built it put his whole soul into it. . . . All the bricks in the nearby houses were aligned in a straight and uniform pattern, but here, the architect chose a “crazy pavement” design, creating an aura of ancient grandeur. The building itself has all kinds of special engravings and castings, more than a hundred meters of stained glass, and an endless array of small, unconventional details.14

However, it was Ramam, more than anyone else, who sanctified the building and its street number. His references to the holiness of the building only increased over the years, along with his exhortations to step up Chabad activism in order to hasten the coming of the Messiah, which reached a peak with the publication of his pamphlet Miqdash Meat: Zeh Beit Rabbenu SheBeBavel (The Holy Temple in Transit) in 1991. The springboard for the whole sanctification process was the fact that the building was the seat of Rayatz, Ramam’s father-in-law and rabbinic predecessor, of whom he stood in awe as the “prince” and “Messiah” of his times. This was the house where Rayatz prayed, learned Torah, put on tefillin, “studied the siddur of the Baal Shem Tov,” and engaged in other such pursuits. Ramam idolized Rayatz in his lifetime and perhaps even more so after his death. At a certain point, he proposed renaming the building “Beis Agudas Chassidei Chabad: Ohel Yosef Yitzchak.”15 In his sermons from the early 1950s, Ramam spoke of the building as being holy by dint of the fact that Rayatz had been there—a holiness that did not fade with his death. He based this on a sermon delivered by Rayatz: The place where a tzaddiq [the spiritual leader] studies Torah and works remains holy even after his body departs this world for the real life, and the light of his work continues to cling to that place. . . . The life of a tzaddiq [such as Rayatz] is eternal, and not only in spiritual matters but also with respect to his physical abode and his physical belongings. . . . To be more

14 Ibid., 263. 15 Ibid., 34–36.

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precise, holiness does not disappear. . . . The sanctity of a tzaddiq penetrates every aspect of his being.16

Furthermore, Ramam designated it as a “communal house for the Jewish people . . . as it was inhabited by someone who was the soul of the people and who sought to create through prayer . . . a link between the people of Israel and their Father in Heaven.” So we see that the building was already envisaged as a shrine in the beginning of the 1950s, even if Ramam did not say so explicitly. But it seems clear that “a communal house for the Jewish people that unites them with their Heavenly Father” is none other than the Temple, especially in light of Ramam’s citation from the Talmud, which speaks about the destiny of synagogues and study houses in Eretz Yisrael and Jerusalem.17 In other words, this building in Brooklyn was seen as a stepping stone to redemption and the Temple that would be rebuilt one day. In the same way that “Jerusalem shall spread throughout the Land of Israel and the Land of Israel shall spread throughout the world,” the home of Rayatz, with its power to influence the Jewish people in its entirety, was perceived as a branch of the Temple.18 In a sermon delivered decades later, Ramam declared that the home of his father-in-law, the Chabad headquarters in New York, would retain its status and sanctity “until the end of time, because when the Messiah comes, it will be picked up and moved to the Land of Israel.”19 Ramam viewed the Chabad house as a holy place and a Temple, or at least more than a miqdash meat (“minor Temple”), throughout his life. Over time, however, he became more vocal on the subject. In the second half of the 1980s, quoting from the Sages, Ramam said that after the destruction of the Temple, synagogues and study halls became Temples in miniature. If that was true of every house of worship and study hall, and 16 Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson (Rayatz), Sefer HaMaamorim 5680–5681 (1919–1920) [Hebrew] (Brooklyn, NY: Karnei Hod Torah, 1986), 10, first article, beginning with “Reishit goyim”; Menachem Mendel Schneerson, (Ramam), Liqutei Sikhot [Hebrew], part 32 (Kfar Chabad: Karnei Hod Torah, 1993), 25. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 61–63. 17 Talmud Bavli, Megillah 29a. 18 Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Ramam), Toras Menachem—Hisvaaduiot 5710 (1950) [Hebrew], part 4 (Kfar Chabad: Karnei Hod Torah, 1993), 82. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 65–70. 19 Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Ramam), Toras Menachem—Hisvaaduiot 5748 (1988) [Hebrew], part 4 (Kfar Chabad: Karnei Hod Torah, 1991), 314. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 34–44, 83.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

certainly the important ones, then it went without saying that it was true of the synagogue and beit midrash (study hall) of his esteemed and venerable father-in-law. But then Ramam goes on to claim that Rayatz’s house was more than a miqdash meat. He found proof of this in the fact that “hundreds and thousands of Jews leave their homes and families to spend the Tishrei holidays [High Holidays] close to the prince of our generation, similar to the pilgrimages in the days of the Temple.” Moreover, just as the sixth of Heshvan was considered the last day of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there were visitors to 770 who remained in town until after the sixth of Heshvan. Ramam goes on to quote from the periodical HaTamim:20 “From the day of the destruction of the Temple and the Holy of Holies until God in his mercy sends us a just redeemer . . . and rebuilds Jerusalem and the Temple for us, Lubavitch will be our Jerusalem and the synagogue of the Holy Admor, our Temple.”21 Ramam’s intimation is clear. In the late 1980s, when the building in Brooklyn was undergoing expansion, Ramam observed: The creation of the world began with the laying of even hashtiya, upon which the Holy of Holies and the Temple were built. This was the foundation for all the rest of creation. . . . From this every one of us learns that when we build a house . . . the foundation of the building . . . must be holy, a miqdash, and not just holy, but holy of holies. . . . In this way, we fulfill the verse “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” Everything in the house will be holy because God has made His abode there.22

Miqdash Meat: Zeh Beit Rabbenu SheBeBavel Towards the end of 1991, not long before he suffered a stroke from which he never recovered, and which culminated in his death in mid-1994, Ramam published a pamphlet devoted entirely to the sanctity of the Chabad center building. He called it Quntres be-Inyan Miqdash Meat: Zeh Beit Rabbenu

20 A Chabad periodical published in the 1930s. 21 HaTamim (published by Igud Talmiday HaTmimim), part 2 (Kfar Chabad: Karnei Hod Torah, 1984), 126. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 38–39. 22 Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Ramam), Toras Menachem—Hisvaaduiot 5746 (1986) [Hebrew], part 4 (Kfar Chabad: Karnei Hod Torah, 1990), 287. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 75.

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SheBeBavel.23 Followers of Chabad attribute supreme importance to this work, not only for its content and allusion to Ramam’s messiahship but because Ramam always kept a copy of it in his prayer book. That in itself is a testimony to his fondness and special attachment to this piece of writing. Sanctification of the building reaches a crescendo in Beit Rabbenu SheBeBavel. Ramam implies, for the first time, that the house is imbued with a special kind of holiness, almost on a par with the Temple in Jerusalem. Until the Temple is rebuilt, the New York house acts as its physical replacement. It is an “eternal abode” in which the Shekhinah dwells, just like the Temple, with sanctity that radiates to all the holy places in the world. In the pamphlet, it is called “Talpiyot,” a compound of tel (hill) and piyot (mouths), meaning “the hill to which all mouths turn in prayer,” a further reference to the Temple; and also “Beit Chayenu,” house of our lives, from which life emanates to all living creatures. No less significantly, Ramam draws a link between the house and the redemption process. In one of the pamphlet’s high points, he writes that the gematria of 770 is “Beit Moshiach” (“House of the Messiah”).24 Ramam’s starting point in this pamphlet is the classical interpretation of the verse “Yet have I been to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they have come” (Ezekiel 11:16). The idea is that a Temple in miniature, modeled on the large-scale Temple in Jerusalem, exists outside of Israel. The Talmud records a dispute between Rabbi Yitzchak, who says that the reference in this verse is to Bavel (Babylon), and Rabbi Eliezer, who says that this verse refers to the house of rabbenu (“our teacher”) in Bavel. According to Rashi, rabbenu is the Talmudic scholar Rav. One way or another, Ramam seeks to build a case for the uniqueness of the house in Brooklyn based on the Talmud and the early Sages. The textual basis for his claim is the repetition of imahem (“with them”) in the saying: “Wherever they are in exile the Shekhinah is with them. . . . They were exiled to Egypt, the Shekhinah was with them. . . . They were exiled to Babylon, the Shekhinah 23 Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Ramam), Quntres be-Inyan Miqdash Meat: Zeh Beit Rabbenu SheBeBavel [Hebrew] (Brooklyn, NY: Karnei Hod Torah, 1991). It is available online on Chabad websites (see, for example, http://www.torah4blind.org/kbrs-eng.pdf). 24 In gematria, which is a Jewish form of numerology, letters of the Hebrew alphabet are assigned numerical values. Thus, the letter bet = 2, yod = 10, taf = 400, mem = 40, shin = 300, yod = 10, chet = 8, all of which adds up to 770. Some see this and other remarks in the pamphlet as evidence from Ramam himself that he was the Messiah. Others say he was referring to Rayatz, since he always spoke of 770 as Rayatz’s home.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

was with them.”25 He argues that among all the synagogues and study halls in the Diaspora, there is one particular synagogue or beit midrash—the “house of our teacher in Bavel”—where the presence of the Shekhinah is especially strong. This place is a “substitute” for the Temple in Jerusalem and the Shekhinah is revealed here in a very special way. Why is the “house of our teacher in Bavel” the only “minor Temple” in which the Shekhinah is eternally present and from which the Third Temple will emerge? Ramam explains that in this house sits the rabbi of the entire Diaspora, the “prince of the generation.” In our day, he argues, the “house of our teacher in Bavel” is none other than the residence of Rayatz, the prince of our generation, at 770 Eastern Parkway. America is now home to the largest Jewish Diaspora, he goes on, and his father-in-law taught Torah and Judaism there for ten years, disseminating the teachings of Chabad to every country in which Jews lived by means of his students and a global network of emissaries. He claims that the Shekhinah, too, is in exile in America, where the majority of Jews are located, and it dwells in the “house of our teacher” from where it radiates out to all synagogues and centers of Torah study around the world. In the current generation, which he calls the last generation of exile and the first generation of redemption, Ramam believes it is the duty of the “house of our teacher,” namely 770, to enlighten the whole world and transform the nations of the world into Eretz Yisrael, in keeping with the doctrine that the “Land of Israel shall spread throughout the world.”26 When that day comes, he says, Jerusalem will cover all of the Land of Israel, and all the synagogues and study halls will be united with the Temple by the hand of the true redeemer, the prince of the generation, who is our generation’s Messiah. Not only that, but he is the champion of the teachings of Hasidism, whose dissemination to the outside world further hastens the coming of the King Messiah.27 These remarks speak for themselves.

Sanctification of the house number, 770 Ramam’s sanctification of the number 770 seems to have begun in the 1980s when a follower of Chabad pointed out that the gematria of 770 is paratzta (“you shall spread out”).28 The term paratzta comes from the Book 25 26 27 28

Talmud Bavli, Megillah 29a. Yalkut Shimoni, Yeshayahu 503. See Ramam, Quntres. See also Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 17–33. Peh = 80, resh = 200, tzadi = 90, taf = 400, totaling 770.

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of Genesis where Jacob dreams of a ladder on which angels are ascending and descending. It appears in God’s promises to Jacob: “Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants” (Genesis 28:14). In the context of Chabad theology, paratzta has long been associated with spreading Chabad teachings to all corners of the world, and doing so persistently. Paratzta basically parallels another Chabad dictum: “yafutzu maayanotekha khutza” (“your springs will gush forth”), which refers to the duty of going into the world to share the wellsprings of Hasidism with others. For Chabad, as we have said, outreach is a prerequisite for bringing the Messiah.29 In 1986, an exact copy of the Chabad building in Brooklyn was built in Kfar Chabad and also given the number 770. Apparently, the day before its dedication was the first time when Ramam commented on the numerological significance of paratzta and 770. From New York, Ramam issued this statement: In Kfar Chabad . . . efforts were made to build a house identical in appearance and every little detail to the house where Rayatz, the prince of our generation, harbinger of joy and redemption, resided for ten years, . . . a house bearing the number 770, which is paratzta in gematria. But the important thing is the spiritual character and soul of the house, the teachings that emanate from this house, including directives about action to be taken . . . that go forth from this house, from 770 in Kfar Chabad and from 770 in this country [America], this city [New York], and this neighborhood [Crown Heights], as it is written: “For there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forever.”30

Several years later, in 1991, Ramam repeated the “770 = paratzta” equation and asserted even more forcefully that the building itself was an agent for “spreading out” and disseminating the teachings of Chabad, unconstrained by place or time. Without the building, he implied, Chabad and its teachings lacked purpose and direction. But on this occasion he elaborated further, introducing new motifs for the significance of the number 770. Number seven, for example, was singled out as denoting wholeness or perfection (as in seven days of the week and seven divine aspects in Kabbalah: chesed, 29 Ramam, Toras Menachem—Hisvaaduiot 5746 (1986), 76. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 96, 250. 30 Ramam, Toras Menachem—Hisvaaduiot 5746 (1986), 76. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 95–96.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

gevurah, tiferet, netzach, hod, yesod, and malkhut): “The most perfect form of seven is a hundred times seven (700) and ten times seven (70), which together make 770.” In the same sermon, Ramam claimed that 770 also contained an allusion to his father-in-law, Rayatz, who lived to seventy and was the source of strength of Ramam and his generation—the seventh generation of the Chabad dynasty.31 Such comments were in line with the power that Ramam ascribed to Rayatz throughout his lifetime. A year later, in 1992, Ramam linked the number 770 with Tzarfat (France), which uses the same Hebrew letters as paratzta and thus shares the same gematria. He claimed that France is mentioned by the prophet Obadiah in connection with the ingathering of the exiles,32 and cited the commentary of the Radak,33 who saw the “liberators,” also mentioned by Obadiah, as a reference to the Messiah and his followers. Ramam described in detail how France was once the antithesis of spirituality and religion, so much so that earlier Chabad leaders prayed for the downfall of France in its wars with Russia. Thanks to their success in this endeavor, “the Jews were spared from the adverse influence [of France], which would have spread had France been victorious, and efforts [in Russia] to bring Jews closer to their Father in Heaven were able to continue, in particular the dissemination of Hasidic teachings in that country through our revered leaders who succeeded the Alter Rebbe.”34 In the days of Rayatz, however, Jewish life in France underwent a complete transformation. The light of holiness reached it from 770: Religious Jews were sent there as emissaries, Rayatz visited the country, and the teachings of Hasidism were spread by word of mouth and in print. In addition, Jews reached France after the Second World War through divine providence. In consequence, France became a center of Torah and Judaism, home to numerous Torah institutions, schools and places of Jewish worship. 31 Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Ramam), Toras Menachem—Hisvaaduiot 5751 (1991) [Hebrew], part 4 (Kfar Chabad: Karnei Hod Torah, 1993), 381. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 47–48. 32 “And that exiled force of Israelites [shall possess] what belongs to the Phoenicians as far as Zarephath [Tzarfat], while the Jerusalemite exile community of Sepharad shall possess the towns of the Negeb. For liberators shall march up on Mount Zion to wreak judgment on Mount Esau; and dominion shall be the Lord’s” (Obadiah 1:20–21). 33 Rabbi David Kimchi, 1160–1235. 34 Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Ramam), Toras Menachem—Hisvaaduiot 5752 (1992) [Hebrew], part 4 (Kfar Chabad: Karnei Hod Torah, 1993), 403. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 50–51.

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Ramam saw France as a model of how the power of 770 could spread from New York to other places and cleanse them of sin. This was part of the process of redemption: “Tzarfat is related linguistically to tzeyruf [refine, purify], as it says in the Book of Daniel: ‘Many will be purified and purged and refined [veyitzarfu]; the wicked will act wickedly and none of the wicked will understand; but the knowledgeable will understand’” (Daniel 12:10). The new site, purified and refined through the work of emissaries, becomes as good as the original. Tzarfat, equal to 770 in gematria, thus takes on the same characteristics as the Chabad building in New York.35 The fact that 770, paratzta and Tzarfat are numerically equivalent is evidence of the power that emanates from 770 in New York to all corners of the world though the auspices of Chabad—power that is capable of elevating the status of a place, even France, which was at the bottom rung, to the point where it becomes a clone of the original.36 In 1991, around the same time that this equivalence was set up, Ramam published the booklet Beit Rabbenu SheBeBavel. In its second part he discusses a whole series of hidden meanings of the number 770, which further demonstrate the special power and significance of the building, and the idea that the house and its number, which are interconnected, are linked to the process of redemption and the coming of the Messiah. Here, and in his sermons for the first time, Ramam points out that 770 in gematria is also “Beit Moshiach.” He writes the following about the number: The house of the Rebbe is known throughout the Jewish world as “Seven-Seventy,” a number whose gematria equivalent is paratzta, from the verse “ufaratzta yama vaqedma” [“you shall spread to the west and to the east”]. The implication is that light shall go out from this abode to the four corners of the earth, and by bursting the bounds, the whole world will be elevated to the standing of Eretz Yisrael . . . and synagogues and batei midrash throughout the world will lay their foundations in Eretz Yisrael, joining up with the Temple in true and complete redemption in the days of  the Messiah. . . . The number 770 evokes the perfection of number seven, . . . which is connected to the seven days of creation . . . and also to the seven stages in the worship of God . . . and the seven branches of the 35 Ramam, Toras Menachem—Hisvaaduiot 5752 (1992), 405–406. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 55–56. 36 Ramam, Toras Menachem—Hisvaaduiot 5752 (1992), 405. Also see Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 54–55.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

menorah. The wholeness of the number 770 alludes to the wholeness of the berur [sifting] that the Jewish people has endeavored to carry out throughout its time in exile for the sake of redemption and returning to Eretz Yisrael. In the words of the prophet, alluding to the first name of our rabbi and teacher [Yosef]: “In that day, My Lord will apply his hand again [yosif] to redeeming the other part of His people that shall remain from Assyria, as also from Egypt, Pathros, Nubia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the islands of the sea.”37 We are told that the people of Israel will be redeemed from seven continents, as well as the “islands of the sea” [an allusion to the United States], which lie in the lower half of the globe. . . . One could also say that the wholeness of the number 770 alludes to the tireless work of our Rebbe [Rayatz], throughout his lifetime, for seven decades [1880–1950] in the lower half of the globe [the United States], from the house at 770, along with the completion of his work by the seventh generation . . . throughout our exile in the world’s seven continents. Very soon “the Lord will apply his hand again” and “gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth,”38 in keeping with the verse “Is this how you burst [paratzta = 770] into the world,”39 and “One who makes a breach goes before them.”40

As we have said, Beit Rabbenu SheBeBavel was Ramam’s last piece of writing on the subject of the house and street number. Ostensibly, he wrote it in two parts, one about the house and the other about the number. In fact, the house and the number were really an indivisible unit. Beit Rabbenu SheBeBavel represented the sanctification process at its height, with SevenSeventy standing in for the Temple until the Third Temple revealed itself. Moreover, the Third Temple would first reveal itself at this very site, the Chabad headquarters in New York. The house would unite with the Temple and together they would travel to Jerusalem, gathering up the rest of the Diaspora synagogues and batei midrash along the way. This provisional Temple would house the Messiah—no matter whether Ramam meant his father-in-law, Rayatz, or himself—as the building number, 770, clearly indicated. Thus, the number cemented the role of the building as a sanctuary from which the teachings of Chabad flowed, spreading its doctrine far and wide thanks to the power emanating from 770 Eastern Parkway. 37 Isaiah 11:11. 38 Isaiah 11:11–12. 39 Genesis 38:29. 40 Ramam, Quntres.

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Replicas of 770 in the Chabad world For years now, followers of Chabad in different parts of the world have been building copies of the house in Brooklyn, including its interior design, and numbering these buildings 770. In 1985, when a replica of the Seven-Seventy was dedicated in Kfar Chabad, Israel, Ramam himself called for building more such replicas, quoting a verse from Proverbs: “A large population is a king’s glory.”41 The goal was not just to boost the power of the New York headquarters, but to create a sense of closeness and convergence, through copies that would bridge the distance. Spiritual closeness to Chabad’s hub in New York means moving closer to the Temple, Messiah (the Rebbe), and Chabad teachings. Local 770s are a kind of pipeline to the Rebbe (Ramam), and they derive their soul and power of influence from the house in New York. The authors of the hagiography Beit Chayenu 770 write: The wave of excitement among Chabad Hasidim at the news of a replica of 770 going up in Kfar Chabad was not surprising. Whatever the explanation, a Hasid who comes to Kfar Chabad and sees 770 in all its glory feels a thrill in his heart. All at once, he sees in his mind’s eye all that the house embodies. He experiences anew everything that he saw and heard there, and his bond to the Admor, prince of our generation, grows stronger.42

Another Chabadnik with inside knowledge of the community concurs: “They remember the Rebbe, his sihos [talks], his sermons, his decisions, and that spurs them into doing what needs to be done and avoiding the opposite.”43 When another replica of 770 was dedicated in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem, similar remarks were made: “This house, which instinctively reminds us of the Rebbe and everything associated with him, triggers our memory and our connection to him, and constitutes a motivating force for Torah and Hasidut.”44 As we shall see, the literature published by Chabad weaves stories about miracles, divine providence and messianic tidings into its accounts of the construction of Seven-Seventy replicas around the world. Easily grasped symbols, these buildings were central in the transformation of Chabad into a vibrant, dynamic and highly active movement during 41 42 43 44

Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 293–294. Ibid., 263. Rabbi Shalom Freiman, letter to the author, November 10, 2013. Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 293.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

the days of Ramam and later. A whole host of standardized symbols, such as the v-shaped Hanukkah menorah (as opposed to a curved one), the mitzvah tank, the yellow Moshiach flag, the Chabad lapel pin, 770, mass-produced photographs of Ramam hung everywhere and slogans like “Long live our master, teacher and Rebbe King Messiah forever,” are used in combination with ongoing “operations” that have become unique hallmarks of the Chabad movement. These activities include the operation of Chabad counters where male passersby are encouraged to don phylacteries; Sabbath candle distribution in a campaign dubbed nesheq—an acronym for nerot Shabbat qodesh (“candles for the holy Sabbath”), but also Hebrew for ammunition; and children’s parades at regular intervals throughout the year.45 The first construction of a Seven-Seventy replica was in Kfar Chabad in 1986. It was Ramam’s own idea to put up an identical building in this village in Israel and give it the same name, “Beis Agudas Chassidei Chabad: Ohel Yosef Yitzchak.” Ramam also covered the building costs and pressed the builders to expedite the project, which was completed within an extraordinarily short time—just a few months. The background for building at this particular time was the Chabad library controversy. A relative of Ramam removed rare books from the library of Rayatz on the grounds that he was an heir and sold them. In doing so, he undermined the character of the collection as a public library (not subject to inheritance) presided over by Ramam as the communal leader. When Chabad filed suit to retrieve the books, the case turned into a debate over continuity in the Chabad dynasty and whether Ramam should be recognized as the successor of Chabad leadership if Chabad was a public organization that was not owned by a private individual. In 1987, the court ordered the books returned, with all that this implied. The Rebbe first brought the matter to the attention of Agudas Chassidei Chabad (which formally represents the Chabad movement) in 1985. Ramam emphasized that the house in New York was registered in the name of Agudas Chassidei Chabad and not privately owned. This was not for tax purposes but because the house was used for prayer, Torah study, and outreach: “To date, there has been no disbursement of the estate, and everything still belongs to the legator (the Admor, my teacher and father-inlaw), as a public figure.” In other words, the estate was still publicly owned by the Chabad movement because the spirit and leadership of Rayatz did 45 For more on this topic, see Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe.

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not fade even after death: “All the books, bichelach [old manuscripts], and household effects belong to the legator, because ‘ma zaro bakhayim—af hu bakhayim’ [a Talmudic expression meaning that a tzaddiq remains spiritually alive as long as his way of life and teachings are perpetuated by his students]. And so it shall remain forever, never divided up, which is clearly the sacred wish of the legator.” To keep up the presence and active leadership of Rayatz, Ramam ordered a house built in Kfar Chabad that would be named for him. It would be a house of worship and a place for Torah study from which the wellsprings of Hasidic lore would go forth. He said that funding would be made available for the project, and that, thank God, he already had the money. Soon after this meeting, the building of the Agudas Chassidei Chabad house in Kfar Chabad commenced.46 The story told in the Chabad community is that in the early days of the project, Ramam showed his secretary, Rabbi Binyamin Klein, a picture of Seven-Seventy in New York and said that he would like the building in Kfar Chabad to look exactly the same. Ramam is also said to have told Rabbi Binyamin Gorodetsky, his chief representative in Europe and a member of Agudas Chassidei Chabad, that the goal of building in Kfar Chabad was to ensure that if there was ever a time it was not possible to reach the 770 in the United States, Chabadniks could visit Kfar Chabad. By looking at this building, they would be reminded of the one in America and the spiritual strengthening they had gained there.47 Within a very short time, the undertaking was complete. The building was dedicated in the summer of 1986, on 15 Tammuz 5746. That evening, 46 This was relayed to me by Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Zalmanhoff in the winter of 2014. Zalmanhoff also said that when the Rebbe first broke the news about the book theft on the night of 15 Tammuz 5745 (1985), he mentioned that the Rebbes had always dreamed of having an estate in Eretz Yisrael. The Middle Admor (son of the founder of Chabad and First Admor, author of the Tanya) purchased land in Eretz Yisrael, as well as Rebbe Rashab (father of Rayatz), and also Rayatz. The land that Rayatz purchased became known as Kfar Chabad. Following this dream, it was now an auspicious time to buy a building in Israel. It would be named Ohel Yosef Yitzchak Lubavitch and it would be used by members of the Kollel [an institute for advanced Torah Study, where the learners are mostly married men] to study the teachings of Rayatz and attend a daily class on Maimonides. The Rebbe announced that a sum of money had already been deposited in the bank for this purpose. He further proposed that those who had mistakenly purchased the books from the library in Brooklyn would return them to this house in Kfar Chabad, thereby restoring them to the rightful ownership of Agudas Chassidei Chabad. He expressed the hope that this would be done quickly, “the sooner the better,” and those who returned the books would do so with “joy and gladness.” 47 Rabbi Zalmanhoff, personal communication, winter 2014.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

Ramam spoke about the building in Kfar Chabad being a replica of the American building spiritually as well as physically, and said he hoped to see such buildings proliferating all over. He envisaged “Chabad houses” bringing the spiritual light of 770 to every part of the world. At a meeting the next day, he again brought up this subject and expressed the same hopes.48 The authors of Beit Chayenu 770 describe in their own words the significance of the new building in Kfar Chabad. The dedication ceremony was attended by “large crowds excited at the sight of this great wonder, as if Seven-Seventy had dropped down from the heavens and tethered itself in Kfar Chabad.” When the mezuzah was affixed, “the throng burst into song and dance, chanting ‘We want Moshiach now.’” They continue: Seven-Seventy in Kfar Chabad has indeed become a magnet for masses of Hasidim, and “ordinary” Jews, too. There are organized groups as well as those who come on their own. On a nice day, one can see people from every community and social class going up to the house [the authors use the phrase “olim labayit,” associated with pilgrimages to the Temple]—some to remember poignant moments they spent in the company of the Rebbe, others to seek supplication or pray near the room modeled after the Rebbe’s holy chambers.49

Visitors to other models of the house probably feel much the same. Since the 1980s, several replicas of Seven-Seventy have been built around the globe as Chabad’s messianic activism has steadily mounted. Unsurprisingly, followers of Chabad have discovered signs and symbols attesting to the special holiness of these structures, too. In the late 1980s, a replica of Seven-Seventy was built in Los Angeles, partly financed by Ramam. The building serves as the Chabad center on the West Coast, “and large numbers of Jews from every religious background come to pray there, recite Psalms and write letters of supplication to the Rebbe.”50 According to Rabbi Shlomo Konin, a Chabad emissary in California, when the architectural plans were being drawn up, the developer wanted to know how much to invest in matching the façade of the Brooklyn building. Rabbi Konin referred him to Ramam via his wife, Rabbanit Chaya 48 Ibid. 49 Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 271. On the construction of the house in Kfar Chabad, also see ibid., 260–271. 50 Ibid., 274.

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Mushka (daughter of Rayatz), who sent the following reply: “It is a source of great satisfaction that Father’s house is so beloved.”51 Not long after that, in 1991, a replica of Seven-Seventy was proposed in Milan, Italy. The building plans were shown to Ramam, who was very pleased with them. The construction work took several years. By what was seen as an act of divine providence, the dedication ceremony was scheduled for 5 Tammuz 1994, which turned out to be in the middle of the week of mourning for the Rebbe, who had just died. The building was named after him: Beit Menachem. Later, it was said that the wife of the Chabad emissary in Milan who initiated the project had met with Ramam decades earlier and he had told her that the Messiah would first pass through Melbourne or Milan. When she confided this to her husband, “the idea came to him that if the Messiah were coming to Milan, there should be a special house in town to greet him.” Today Beit Menachem in Milan is an important Chabad center that engages in Jewish outreach and “prepares the Jews of Milan for welcoming the Messiah in the very near future.”52 Four years after the establishment of the Milanese Seven-Seventy, the cornerstone was laid for a replica in Melbourne, Australia. The guest of honor at the ceremony was the chief rabbi of England, Jonathan Sacks. His remarks at the event were very much in line with the thinking of Ramam, even though he is not a follower of Chabad, and they are prominently featured in Chabad literature presumably for that reason. He began by quoting the rabbinic dictum that synagogues and study halls in the Diaspora would one day relocate to Eretz Yisrael, and went on to compare the “embassy,” a special building in another country that enjoys exclusive legal status, with the synagogue. Every synagogue is part of the territory of Jerusalem even if it is not there now, he said. Throughout the generations, when Jews went into a synagogue, they knew right away that they were home: All their prayers rose up and fused with Jerusalem. The unique synagogue under construction in Melbourne was not just part of Jerusalem but part of another unique place, 770 Eastern Parkway. Where the great leaders are—that is our Jerusalem, Sacks exclaimed. “Seven-Seventy is the Jerusalem of our day and age. . . . A small portion of 770 has now moved to Melbourne and will be a source of vitality and inspiration for all who

51 Rabbi Zalmanhoff, personal communication, winter 2014. 52 Wolf and Gopin, Beit Chayenu, 275–278.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

worship in the new synagogue and all those who think of this great man and the work he has left for us to complete.”53 Unsurprisingly, Chabad took steps from the outset to reinforce the spiritual and ideological bond between 770 in Australia and 770 in New York. A brick from the house in New York and a stone from Hebron were used for the cornerstone, and the same shovel Ramam used when the New York house was expanded in 1988 was brought to this event.54 The dedication of 770 in Melbourne, a twin of 770 New York, took place in the summer of 2001: “The friendly backslapping and camaraderie at the dedication ceremony certainly brought to mind the special atmosphere of the gatherings at 770 in [New York].” The vision of Ramam standing in the doorway of 770 in New York was also evoked, with “the Hasidim convinced that they would soon be reunited with the Rebbe in complete redemption.” It was considered especially meaningful that even in faraway Australia, so distant from the centers of Judaism both geographically and spiritually, there was a 770 building serving as a “stronghold from which to ‘conquer’ Australia and prepare the continent of the coming of the Messiah.”55 In 2002, a year after the dedication of 770 in Melbourne—“on the centennial of the prince of our generation”—another 770 was dedicated in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Divine providence was also discerned in the construction of this building. Problems in licensing that had been expected due to the planned size of the building did not materialize; the landowners sold the property for less than the original price when they heard what it would be used for; and no fewer than twelve natural springs were discovered while digging the foundations, so that ritual baths could be built using freely flowing “living waters.”56 The following year, 2003, a faithful copy of 770 was built in Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood. This building had special significance because it meshed with Ramam’s idea of reaching Jerusalem in the end to further the goal of bringing the Messiah. At the cornerstone-laying ceremony two years earlier, a brick from 770 in New York was used, as in Melbourne, so that “every particle of this house derives its vitality from its cornerstone.”57 Yet again, divine intervention manifested itself at every step, 53 54 55 56 57

Ibid., 280–281. Ibid., 238–242, 281. Ibid., 282–284. Ibid., 285–288. Ibid., 298.

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from obtaining title to the land through the actual building process and all the complex details that had to be dealt with in order for the project to be completed.58 The dedication ceremony was attended by Ehud Olmert, then mayor of Jerusalem, whose remarks evoked the spirit of Ramam: “The 770 building we are dedicating today is not a tombstone, God forbid, but an enduring reminder of the greatness of the Rebbe. It is an inspiration for the whole world and derives its strength from the example set by the Rebbe.”59 Other speakers at the event called the building a remnant of the Temple and declared that it could impact on the whole city and change the face of Jerusalem.60 As far as we know, the last 770 to be built is the Chabad house in Buenos Aires, which was completed at the end of 2003. Speakers at the dedication ceremony again cited instances of divine providence, pointing out that it was the anniversary of Kristallnacht, on which the Nazis burned down synagogues in Germany: “The 770 building we inaugurate today is our answer to their deeds. They destroyed and we build.” One of the rabbis talked about how the building constituted a link to Ramam powerful enough to exert influence over the whole country. Chabad emissary Rabbi Zvi Greenblatt said: “The outside [of the building] is also its inside, as well as the source of our power, which is the power of the Rebbe. The very fact that 770 has been built in Argentina shows that we have the strength to turn all of Argentina into a Hasidic country.”61 Seven-Seventy in New York has not only served as an architectural model, but as a theme for paintings and graphic designs such as those used in book covers for Chabad literature, including the three-volume Chitat set (the Chitat is a Hebrew acronym for Chumash, Tehilim, Tanya). The uninitiated may think they are looking at a picture of the Temple, but it is actually the Holy Temple of Chabad.

Pervasive use of the number 770 As noted earlier, Ramam sanctified the number 770, turning it into a symbol and emblem of Chabad, encapsulating its very essence. The authors of Beit Chayenu 770 put it well: 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid., 289–302. 61 Ibid., 305–306.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

770—three digits that contain a whole world, one unit . . . towards which thousands of pairs of eyes gaze all over the world. . . . Just say “770”—“seven seventy”—to any Hasid, and watch how his senses grow alert and his whole being quivers with longing. It is a keyword in the Hasidic lexicon. For every Hasid, young and old, 770 is the be-all and end-all, three digits synonymous with everything the heart desires. 770 cannot be defined as a certain place. Over the past generation, it has become a symbol—for tens of thousands of Hasidim who derive all their inner strength from this glorious house; for masses of Jews for whom this house serves as a source of joy and security, and spiritual faith and courage; for the confused and searching, in whom 770 has infused a clear-cut and stable way of life; for thousands upon thousands of Torah students and worshippers of God for whom this glorious house and the bounty that overflows from it constitute a beacon of Torah, religious faith and devotional guidance.62

So over time, in parallel to the rise of messianic activism in Chabad, we see a growing monopolization of the number 770. Just as the architecture of the house fulfils a purpose, tens of thousands of Chabadniks incorporate the number 770 in their lives, using it like a flag that signifies their affiliation with the Rebbe and his Temple. The range of uses has expanded over the years, and new ones will probably be devised. The number 770 forms part of the name of various Chabad institutions in Israel and the Diaspora. Outside of Israel, 770 is incorporated in the addresses of Chabad institutions and private homes even when it is not sequential with the numbering on the street. Followers of Chabad have managed to convince the authorities to allow them to use 770 regardless of the addresses of the houses around them.63 In addition to street addresses, Chabad adherents make prodigious efforts to include 770 in their telephone numbers, post box numbers, email addresses, website names and license plates. Companies owned by Chabadniks and Chabad institutions also use 770 in their names. 62 Ibid., 9. 63 This was something I learned from personal experience. While I was on sabbatical in Canada more than twenty years ago, I was invited for a Sabbath meal to the home of a Chabad emissary in Winnipeg. I was given an address that included the street and 770 as the house number. When I got there, I searched high and low for a house with that number, but could not find it. I had no choice but to knock on a neighbors’ door to ask if they knew where the family lived. They did, and escorted me to the Chabadnik’s house. The number was indeed 770, but there was no connection between that and the house numbers to the right and left of it.

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Chabad 770, a global company owned by Ukrainian billionaire Alexander Granovsky, is a good example. The company’s profits go to charity and are used for Jewish communal activities organized by Chabad. The chairman of the company is a Chabad emissary and the chief rabbi of Odessa, and the CEO is a resident of Kfar Chabad. Granovsky visits the grave of Ramam in New York to “get his blessing” for business ventures and also counts on the prayers of the company chairman to ensure his success. In 2013, Chabad 770’s name came up as a possible buyer of Israel Discount Bank.64 Other examples of companies with 770 in their name are two Jerusalem-based firms: Digitali 770 Ltd. and 770 Project Management.65 Mevaser Tov 770 is a radio station in Israel that broadcasts Hasidic music. Kesser Seven Seventy is a semi-sweet kosher wine sold at New York wine shops.66 The number 770 has even penetrated the world of gimmicks and souvenirs. Chabad sells key chains with portraits of Ramam on one side and pictures of the house in New York on the other, embellished with the 770 logo.

Conclusion Sacred buildings are one of the physical components of religion. Today, synagogues, churches, and mosques are the distinctive religious sanctuaries of the three monotheistic faiths, while temples are the shrines of nonmonotheistic religions.67 Sometimes entire compounds are revered because of the existence of multiple holy sites within their boundaries. Mecca in Saudi Arabia and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem are examples. The pious make an effort to visit their holy places often, either because pilgrimages are part of the religion or because they find the sites religiously inspiring. Sometimes the motivation is a combination of both. However, obstacles of one kind or another may keep them from carrying out this goal. Many will try to bring the holy place “closer” by hanging a large picture of it close by. On rare occasions, if believers have the financial means for it, they will install a small model of the holy place, or sections of it, in their home. 64 Globes,September13,2013,https://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1000878537#/. 65 Companies that came up in a Google search. 66 Ibid. 67 Jamie Scott and Paul Simpson-Housley (eds.), Sacred Places and Profane Spaces: Essays in the Geographics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991).

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

Chabad sanctification of its headquarters in Crown Heights is related to this aspiration of being near a holy place. For Chabad followers, it is a mitzvah to be near 770, not to mention the profound inspiration they derive from this nearness. Having models of the house around the world and incorporating the number 770 in daily life help to create a constant sense of proximity for those who are geographically distant, even if the Crown Heights building continues to reign supreme. While there are probably buildings in other religions whose purpose has changed over time from a residence to a shrine (and vice versa) as a result of a change in ownership or actions taken by the owners to convert the property into a house of worship, no search has turned up a building in which the street address has also been sanctified, with the holiness of the address elevating the sanctity of the building to the highest degree, that of a temple. Likewise, there is no similar phenomenon in the contemporary Jewish world of a residential or public building attaining the status of a temple in the way that 770 Eastern Parkway has. To the best of our knowledge, neither is there a precedent for the sanctification of a street number or the reciprocal empowerment of a building and its number.68 There is no question that this geographic phenomenon derives from the uniqueness of Ramam as the leader of Chabad since the mid-twentieth century and the distinctive modus operandi of the movement during his lifetime and afterwards. The man and the movement are in a class of their own. The spatial phenomenon of reverence for a building and its number is a unifying factor for the Chabad movement: It is embraced by messianists and non-messianists alike. Four elements, all interconnected, appear to have produced it. The first factor is a dramatic upsurge in messianic activism, unparalleled in contemporary Jewish life, under the baton of Ramam and his predecessor Rayatz. This activism increased over time and reached new heights in Ramam’s twilight years and after his death (or “disappearance”) in 1994. The second element is the idolizing of Ramam after he took the helm, and even more so during his last twenty or twenty-five years in office. The third factor is the sanctification of the house and number by Ramam himself; and the fourth, the fierce desire of Chabad Hasidim for tangible

68 See Chapter 8, on the number 613 being assigned to a building on Clark Street in North Toronto that houses the largest Orthodox synagogue in Canada. This number is not random, as 613 stands for the 613 commandments in the Torah. However, this is a case of simple symbolism, not sanctification.

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contact with Ramam. In any case, the reasons for the phenomenon are complex and go beyond ordinary symbolism. Under the leadership of Ramam, messianic activism rose to a peak, to the point where some of his followers declared him worthy of being the Messiah and others said he was the Messiah. Directly or indirectly, Ramam encouraged this. After his explicit statements regarding the house and number, which were part of a larger web of messianic activism initiated by Ramam and his predecessor, including calling it “Beit Moshiach,” it was inevitable that his followers would adopt this line. In keeping with the practice of Hasidim to aggrandize the words of their Rebbe, adherents of Chabad further sanctified the house, after its consecration as a temple by Ramam. In addition, the house in New York served as a tangible physical presence, a kind of substitute for the Messiah who tarried. When Ramam died (or disappeared), the house remained not just the place where the Third Temple would appear before relocating to Jerusalem, but the most significant and palpable connection to Ramam. Its existence offered hope for messianic revelation. So yet another reason for the sanctity of the building is its role as a place of communion with Ramam.69 Since even today, belonging to Chabad means promoting messianic ideology (even among those not affiliated with the messianic faction) and striving for closeness to Ramam, now that he is gone, followers need ways of keeping that relationship alive. The 770 building, wherever it is—in New York or the “Chabad diaspora,” or even 770 without the building—constitutes one of the most significant links to Ramam. In the same way, one can still “ask” the Rebbe questions and receive an answer through Igrot Qodesh, the enormous corpus of letters he left behind. The building replica phenomenon is also directly linked to Ramam: When the Kfar Chabad building was dedicated, he called for 770s to be built everywhere. For his followers, no further interpretation was necessary. Ramam clearly wanted his house to be replicated outside of New York. Thus in addition to the goal of connectivity that led to the establishment of sub-branches in the Chabad diaspora, the express desire of Ramam himself came into play. Hence it is not surprising that divine providence and holiness has been also ascribed to the sub-branches. 69 For a review of Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe, see Yoram Bilu, “Reviewed Works: The Rebbe: The Life and Afterlife of Menachem Mendel Schneerson by Menachem Friedman, Samuel Heilman” [Hebrew], Zion 77, no. 2 (2012): 290.

The Chabad Movement and Beit Moshiach on 770 Eastern Parkway, New York

For years now, the Chabad movement, unlike other Hasidic groups, has tirelessly produced and promoted (sometimes aggressively) a wide array of creative mitzvah-oriented campaigns, some on Ramam’s orders and others inspired by him. These include tefillin-laying, Sabbath candle distribution, mitzvah tanks, the lighting of Hanukkah menorah, and a network of emissaries dispatched to organize programs around the world. This zeal has given birth to two cultural-spatial innovations: the 770 buildings, described in detail above, and the “Beit Chabad” centers that can be found throughout the Chabad diaspora (regardless of the size of the community), which are worthy of separate study. The Hasidic movement as a whole has engendered highly interesting spatial by-products waiting to be explored from a cultural-geographical perspective: the gravesites of Hasidic rabbis and the cult that has developed around them, the “court” of the Hasidic tzaddiq, the “sanctification” of Uman by the Bratslav Hasidim,70 and more.

70 Zvi Mark, “The Righteous in the Throat of the Sitra Achra: The Holy Man and the Impure Place: On Pilgrimage to the Tomb of R. Nahman of Bratzlav in Uman on Rosh HaShanah” [Hebrew], Reshit 2 (2010): 112–146; Yoram Bilu and Zvi Mark, “Between Tsaddiq and Messiah: A Comparative Analysis of Chabad and Breslav Hasidic Groups,” in After Spirituality: Studies in Mystical Traditions, ed. Philip Wexler and Jonathan Garb (New York: Peter Lang, 2012), 47–78; Moshe Weinstock, Uman: The Israeli Journey to the Grave of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Miskal, 2011).

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Chapter 8

“Jewish Toronto”: Street Names, Signs, and Symbols in the North of Metropolitan Toronto*

The role of culture in urban development has always been highly significant. Culture leaves so many physical traces on the urban landscape over time that it is difficult even to list them. They can be discerned in the architecture of museums, markets and shopping centers, religious shrines, theaters, libraries, and schools. Culture also leaves its mark on monuments, cemeteries, and municipal symbols. Sometimes, whole neighborhoods in which a certain ethnic population is dominant will be visibly transformed by the unique cultural imprint of that population. The study of cities, which dwells at length on the contribution of economics and demography in urban development, has long recognized the importance of culture to this development.1

* This study was carried out in 2010–2011, during my sabbatical at York University’s Center for Jewish Studies in Ontario, Canada. The center and its chair, Prof. Sara Horowitz, provided me with invaluable assistance, for which I am grateful. Special thanks are due to Ms. Maxa Sawyer, a doctoral student at the center, for her help in obtaining data from Vaughan city hall and the Jewish Federations of Canada. 1 Daniel D. Arreola, “Urban Ethnic Landscape Identity,” The Geographical Review 85, no. 4 (1995): 518–534; Henri Lefebvre, Writings on Cities, trans. and ed. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1996); Eitan Sommerfeld and Aura Mor, “Linguistic Landscape in a Shared Urban Space: Haifa as a Case Study” [Hebrew], Horizons in Geography 77 (2011): 110–133.

“Jewish Toronto”: Street Names, Signs, and Symbols

This study explores different representations of Jewish culture in the public domain introduced over the last few decades in the largest district in the north of Metropolitan Toronto, Canada. I refer specifically to street names, the addresses of institutions, public signage and symbols employing Jewish/ Israeli motifs in the city of Vaughan, which is located at the northern tip of Toronto and feeds directly into the heart of the metropolitan area. Although the Jewish presence in Toronto as a whole goes back a long time, the physical manifestations of Jewish culture are particularly visible in Vaughan. Vaughan is home to the second largest concentration of Jews in the metropolitan area after Toronto. As at 2011, some 35,000 Jews live there, constituting 20 percent of the Jewish population of Metropolitan Toronto, which is around 180,000. This represents 4 percent of the total population (4.5 million). Some 114,000 Jews live in Toronto itself (making up 63 percent of the Jews of Metropolitan Toronto).2 This chapter has two goals: First, to describe and analyze these signs of Jewish culture in the public domain, and second, to explore why there are so many of them in this particular location when Metropolitan Toronto has other large clusters of Jews that are not marked in this way. Moreover, even in parts of Metropolitan Toronto where masses of Jews congregated in the past, there are not, and have never been, public displays of this kind—most notably, streets with Jewish/Israeli names. My contention is that despite the significant Jewish presence in the city of Toronto, the Jewish presence in the north is distinctive in many respects. It is the special character of this community that explains why signs of Jewishness are so conspicuous, from street names, building numbers, signs, and emblems to vehicle license plates. The chapter is based mainly on field work carried out in 2011, and consists of four parts. The first part looks at the development of the Jewish community of Metropolitan Toronto in general, and the northern district in particular. The second part explores the Jewish/Israeli street names in Vaughan and how they were chosen compared to the naming of streets in other parts of the metropolitan district with high concentrations of Jews. The third part examines the street numbers of institutions and use of Jewish symbols, and the fourth part addresses flags, street signs, and license plates. Unfortunately, documentation is sparse, if it exists at all, so interviews and landscape analysis were used instead. 2 Based on Jewish Federations of Canada figures for 2011.

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The history and geography of the Toronto Jewish community Toronto is the capital of the province of Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1793 at the shores of Lake Ontario. In 1834, it was declared a city. As waves of immigrants arrived from Europe, especially after the Second World War, Toronto grew and expanded northward. From the 1970s, internal migration from Quebec (mainly due to fears of Quebec’s secession from Canada) and other provinces, as well as mass immigration from the Far East, turned Toronto into the largest city in Canada and its economic nucleus. As of 2011, it was defined as a global city, the third most important in North America, after New York and Los Angeles, and number ten in the world. It is home to international trade and industry, a hub of land, air, and naval transportation, and a center for flights to all North American destinations. As a result, Toronto is a non-stop magnet for newcomers. The  population has passed 2.6 million, with over 4.5 million people in greater Toronto. The Toronto Jewish community dates back to the 1830s. At the end of the nineteenth century, waves of Jews began to arrive from Poland and Russia, leading to the establishment of communities organized around hometowns.3 The Holocaust and the rise of Communism in Eastern Europe boosted immigration to Toronto. Later, the community grew in the wake of mass migration from Montreal when it was feared that Quebec would sever its ties with Canada. The city’s rapid economic growth and the many opportunities it offers, not least in the spheres of culture and higher education, together with the emergence of a strong, financially established, and tolerant Jewish community that maintains positive relations with all Jewish denominations, have attracted Jews from other parts of Canada, the United States, and Israel. The Jewish exodus from Soviet Russia was another factor in the rapid growth of the Toronto Jewish community, transforming it in the final third of the twentieth century into the largest Jewish community in Canada and one of the largest in all of North America. Greater Toronto has over 180,000 Jews. A quarter of them are Israeli.4 Many of Toronto’s Jews are well-off financially and Jewish philanthropy is highly developed. In addition, a deep commitment to community is discernible among Jews of all denominations in Toronto. This provided the 3 On the early days of the Toronto Jewish community, see Stephen A. Speisman, The Jews of Toronto: A History to 1937 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1987). 4 Based on data provided by the Jewish Federations of Canada for the summer of 2011.

“Jewish Toronto”: Street Names, Signs, and Symbols

foundation for the establishment of a long line of Jewish institutions, which expanded over time as necessary, with branches opening in other Jewish neighborhoods around the city. Sometimes the institutions were built before residential housing, and became the impetus for building homes in the area. Jewish public buildings in Toronto include synagogues and schools serving the different denominations (ultra-Orthodox, modern Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform); a school for Israelis living in Toronto; Jewish community centers; libraries; retirement homes; youth clubs; volunteer organizations, and more. As in the past, most of the Jewish community is spread out along Bathurst Street. The street begins at Lake Ontario at the southern tip of the city, and moves northward across the whole length of the city of Toronto and into Vaughan, which borders Toronto in the north and constitutes part of Metropolitan Toronto. There is no visible cessation in building between the two cities. As Toronto developed northward, the Jewish population moved northward, too, continuing the tradition of living on both sides of Bathurst (west and east). Over the past four decades, the Jews have crossed into the municipal boundaries of Vaughan, which is now home to 35,000 Jews out of a total population of 240,000. In other words, 15 percent of the residents of Vaughan are Jewish. This makes it the second largest Jewish population center in greater Toronto (after the city of Toronto), but in terms of density it is the most Jewish district in the whole of the metropolitan area. To give an idea of the size of the Jewish community of Vaughan, it is the third largest in Canada: Toronto is first, and Montreal is second. Ottawa, Vancouver, and Winnipeg lag far behind.5 Jews are predominant in the massive Thornhill and Richmond Hill neighborhoods, which were farmland in the not so distant past.6 A  substantial portion of the Jewish population of Toronto and Vaughan lives in these neighborhoods. Jewish institutions, among them many synagogues, including the largest Orthodox congregation in North America, were built there, and large Jewish schools, formerly located in the south, have moved to these neighborhoods. Examples are Associated Hebrew Schools of Toronto, an enormous modern Orthodox elementary school open to all Jewish children; the Tanenbaum Community Hebrew 5 Based on data provided by the Jewish Federations of Canada for the summer of 2011. 6 Even today, traces of agriculture remain.

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Academy of Toronto (CHAT), open to all Jewish high school students; Eitz Chaim, an elementary school that serves the ultra-Orthodox population; Netivot HaTorah, another modern Orthodox day school; and Leo Baeck Day School, an elementary school run by the Reform movement. In addition, there are cheder schools for ultra-Orthodox children. The fiftyacre campus of the Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Jewish Community Center at the northern tip of Thornhill opened in 2012. This campus, the largest in Canada and one of the largest in North America, houses Jewish social service agencies, conference halls, schools, childcare facilities, theater and art venues, and fitness centers that have relocated from southern Toronto (also previously clustered around Bathurst Street).

Street names and the naming process Jewish identity has left a visible imprint on Vaughan through street names, addresses, street signs and graphic symbols – more so than anywhere else in greater Toronto. This is less obvious in the architecture of Jewish public buildings, which, apart from the synagogues, is not very different from that of the surrounding structures. Vaughan has twenty-eight streets with Jewish/Israeli names, which can be broken down as follows: one named for the core symbol of Judaism (Torah), one for a major Jewish organization (Chabad), one for the neighborhood in New York where this organization is located (Crown Heights), one for the leading yeshiva in Vaughan (Ner Yisrael) and one for the Jewish colony in Saskatchewan, western Canada (Yidnbridge—“Jews’ Bridge”).7 Ten streets bear unmistakably Jewish given names, most of them biblical: Noah, Amnon, Uriah, Leah, Judith, Tova, Esther, Jonathan, Joshua, and Tami. Five streets are named for places in Israel: Gamla, Yarden, Givon, Carmel, and Timna. Another five are named for famous people in the Jewish world: the Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon; the Canadian Jewish philanthropists Joseph and Wolf Lebovic; the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust; the Soviet Jewish chess champion Israel Zilber; and Michael Fisher. Three streets have random Hebrew names: Yemina (rightward), Sadot (fields), and Zahavi (my gold).8 Two of these streets are major thoroughfares: Ilan Ramon and Chabad. The other “Jewish” streets 7 Yossi Katz, “Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Canada in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries” [Hebrew], Yahadut Zmanenu 7 (1992): 291–293. 8 Based on my field work in the summer of 2011.

“Jewish Toronto”: Street Names, Signs, and Symbols

are basically side streets. Apart from Chabad Gate, which was built several decades ago, the “Jewish” streets are in neighborhoods developed over the last few years. The introduction of Jewish/Israeli street names seems to be attributable to two main factors: the growing strength of the Jewish community in Toronto, and Vaughan in particular; and the pivotal role of Jewish and Israeli entrepreneurs in building large parts of Vaughan, which gave them the right to choose street names in the areas they developed. We shall discuss these factors in greater depth below.9 It seems clear from the evidence set out above that the Jews of greater Toronto have considerable financial, organizational, and political clout, which was not the case in the past, both in the province of Ontario and in Canada as a whole. On top of that, they are demographically significant. It would not be far from the truth to say that the Jewish community of greater Toronto is one of the most powerful communities in North America. The Jews are high on the socioeconomic scale, well-educated, close to sources of power and influence, and involved in all aspects of life in the city. They are leaders in many spheres and donors to causes even outside the Jewish community. They enjoy representation in the city council, the provincial government and the Canadian parliament. In the 2000s, Prof. Irwin Cotler, a respected attorney who speaks Hebrew, is married to an Israeli woman, and has children living in Israel, served as Canada’s Minister of Justice. Requests to approve Jewish/Israeli names for streets in neighborhoods with a high concentration of Jews are thus greeted with understanding and rarely arouse objection.10 Indeed, Canada, with its governmentsponsored multiculturalism, seems to regard this naming policy as part of its multicultural commitment. Lower down on the pyramid, the street-naming policies of the local and municipal authorities are also significant. Developers have the right to choose their own street names. Since much of the land in Vaughan is owned and developed by the Jewish Federations of Canada and private Jewish citizens from Canada, Israel, and Russia, it is not surprising that they choose Jewish/Israeli names. Naming a street for Israel Zilber, a Jew from the former Soviet Union, was presumably the idea of Russian Jewish 9 Based on talks with officials at Vaughan city hall and the Jewish Federations of Canada carried out by Maxa Sawyer, my research assistant, in the summer of 2011. 10 Based on talks with officials at Vaughan city hall and the Jewish Federations of Canada carried out by Maxa Sawyer, my research assistant, in the summer of 2011.

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entrepreneurs. Similarly, the fact that 17 percent of the street names are places in Israel testifies to the fervent Zionism of the greater Toronto Jewish community and its unfailing support for Israel. The fact that over one-third are classic Jewish given names is further evidence of the strong Jewish identity of the place. Naming major arteries for Ilan Ramon and Chabad is a testimony to their importance, and even more so, the high esteem in which they are held by the naming parties. This is a phenomenon known all over the world: setting up a link between the functional importance of a street and the prestige of the personality or institution that it is named for. Many boulevards in Israeli cities are called Herzl, for example, and Keren HaYesod is one of Jerusalem’s main streets.11 Obviously, Ilan Ramon and Chabad rank higher than other Jewish/Israeli street names in Vaughan. There is no need to elaborate on the profound admiration for Ilan Ramon—the first Israeli astronaut—in the Jewish world during his lifetime and after his tragic death. Montreal also has a street named for Ramon, albeit a smaller one. While this street is also in a Jewish neighborhood, it stands out less for its importance as a traffic artery than for the fact that there are no other streets in the vicinity with Jewish names, as in Toronto. Dedicating a main thoroughfare to the worldwide Hasidic movement known as Chabad, as well as naming a street for the neighborhood in New York where Chabad has its main headquarters, is not only due to the fact that Vaughan is home to some of the movement’s important institutions. It is also a product of the close ties to Chabad of the man who built much of Thornhill, Joseph Tanenbaum. Tanenbaum is one of the leading donors to Chabad enterprises around the world, including Canada and Israel. A Chabad newsletter from 1986 describes this relationship with Tanenbaum: This week, the famous philanthropist from Toronto, Canada, Mr. Joseph (Joe) Tanenbaum, visited Kfar Chabad. Since his first visit eight years ago, he has put on tefillin [phylacteries] faithfully every day, and whenever he is in Israel, he drops in to see the latest developments. . . . At the end of the visit, Mr. Tanenbaum expressed his amazement at the rapid growth of Kfar Chabad. He spoke about how proud he was to be a supporter of Lubavitch 11 See Yossi Katz, “The JNF Naming Committee and the Naming of Jewish Communities during the British Mandate” [Hebrew], Iyunim BiTqumat Yisrael 9 (1999): 280–315. This article discusses the policy of the JNF Naming Committee whereby settlements and neighborhoods are named for key personalities and institutions in the history of the yishuv.

“Jewish Toronto”: Street Names, Signs, and Symbols

activity all over the world, and in Israel, in particular. Mr. Tanenbaum’s generous contribution to Chabad institutions, both in his hometown and in Israel, is indeed noteworthy.12

Vaughan’s city bylaws allow entrepreneurs to choose the names of certain streets. Thus it is not surprising that as soon as construction of the Chabad neighborhood began, Tanenbaum called the main road leading into it Chabad Gate. Lebovic Campus Drive is also relatively important, though not as important as the streets named for Ilan Ramon and Chabad. Naming this road, as well as the vast Jewish community campus in the same vicinity, for the two Lebovic brothers is clearly a token of appreciation for their work on behalf of the greater Toronto Jewish community. The naming procedure, at least in Ontario, is as follows: City hall (Vaughan) asks the entrepreneurs (mainly Canadian Jews, Jews from the former Soviet Union and expatriate Israelis) to submit a list of names. This list is checked by English language experts to ascertain that (a) there is no other street with that name in the same neighborhood; and (b) the name can be pronounced in a way that the average person will have no problem finding it. It is particularly important to the authorities that the emergency services be able to reach the street if summoned. Beyond that, the city has no criteria or database of names waiting to be assigned. From the perspective of Vaughan city hall, street naming has nothing to do with politics or ideology: it is a technical matter and nothing more. The same is true for street naming in other districts.13 As mentioned earlier, the Jews of Toronto are clustered around Bathurst, south of Vaughan, and many Jewish community buildings, especially synagogues, are located along that street. Yet none of the streets in the area have Jewish names. Why? There are several reasons, the first of which is that when the Jews settled in this area—mainly in the first half of the twentieth century—they made up a much smaller percentage of the population and had considerably less political power, education, social status and influence than Torontonian Jewry today. Many of them hailed from Eastern Europe and others were Holocaust survivors. They did not own reserves of land and were not involved in real estate projects to the 12 Kfar Chabad (weekly newsletter of Young Chabad in Israel), 237, 25 Nissan 5746 (1986). 13 Based on data provided by Vaughan city hall and Maxa Sawyer, my research assistant, in the summer of 2012.

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point that they had any say in naming. Furthermore, the roads were built before the Jews arrived and they already had names.14

Addresses: Street numbers and use of Jewish symbols In the Western world it is customary for buildings on a street to be numbered in a certain sequence. Usually the numbering is consecutive and follows a logical order so that a building can be located easily. Sometimes buildings on one side of the street are given even numbers and those on the other side, odd numbers. The numbers do not necessarily follow a 1, 3, 5, 7 sequence but the principle of ascending (or descending) order is preserved. On two streets in Vaughan, one can see a clear divergence from this order. The unsuspecting passerby will stare in disbelief, find it hard to come up with an explanation, and assume a mistake has been made. But there is an explanation, and it is connected to Vaughan’s special Jewish character. We are talking about two addresses. The first is 613 Clark Avenue in Thornhill. This is the address of the largest Orthodox synagogue in North America, known as BAYT (Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto), also named for Joseph Tanenbaum, the Toronto philanthropist who built large parts of Thornhill. The second is 770 Chabad Gate, the address of Chabad Lubavitch of Ontario, also in Thornhill. The number 613 is highly significant in Judaism. It represents the sum total of commandments in the Torah that Jews must observe. In Jewish Law, these commandments are called mitzvot de’oraita, or biblically mandated laws, which are directly handed down by God, and thus higher on the scale of obligation than mitzvot de’rabanan, or rabbinically mandated laws. This number is also considered significant in gematria, Jewish numerology. Written down with Hebrew letters, the numerals become taryag (often used as part of the phrase taryag mitzvot). What better number could there be for a synagogue than 613? In this way, an ordinary mailing address is recruited into the service of Jewish identity. The meaningfulness of the address is boosted many times over by the fact that the Jewish community knows the symbolism of the number. The importance goes far beyond its linkage with North America’s largest Orthodox synagogue. It could be interpreted not only as a call to prayer, but as a reminder of the totality of Jewish religious observance. It may allude to the fact that the synagogue is not just a house 14 Speisman, The Jews of Toronto.

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of worship, but a place for Torah study, which is indeed true for part of the building. However one interprets it, the number 613 adds another dimension to the Jewish cultural character of the district as a whole. The authorities’ approval of this irregular numbering was no doubt influenced by the might of the local Jewish community and city hall’s recognition of Tanenbaum’s immense contribution to the community and Toronto at large. The other non-sequential number is 770, or Seven-Seventy in local parlance, the address of Chabad Lubavitch. This number is sacred to Chabad because it was the house number of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last leader of the Chabad movement and the one directly responsible for its tremendous growth since the second half of the twentieth century. Schneerson was the visionary of the Chabad outreach. The global influence of the Chabad mission as inspired by Schneerson is undeniable. Most importantly, he is perceived as the Messiah by a large group of the Chabadniks, known as the messianic faction. Although he died in 1994, this group maintains he is still living. Even those who disagree with the messianists regard the Rebbe as holy. He was revered in his lifetime, and continues to be revered even more so after his death by his followers and others in the Jewish world. His followers lined up outside his door when he was alive, and they have flocked to his grave since his death. His home on Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, is now the world center of the movement. It is treated as a shrine, and its holiness is encapsulated in the number 770.15 Seven-Seventy is the symbol of everything that Chabad does and stands for: it is the global “code” of the organization. Hence not only the house but also the number of the house becomes sanctified. The sanctity of the number and its transformation into a symbol of the organization and its beliefs is clearly seen in the Chabad explanation that the gematria of 770 is “Beit Moshiach” (“House of the Messiah”).16 Replicas of the building in New York have been built in different parts of the world; pictures of it appear everywhere, even embroidered on Torah mantles; and 770 is a much sought-after number. Chabadniks do everything they can to incorporate it in their home addresses, telephone numbers (770 is part of the telephone number of the Chabad center in Vaughan), license plates, and the names 15 See more about the Chabad movement, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and the impact of his life and death in Heilman and Friedman, The Rebbe. 16 In Jewish numerology, bet = 2; yod = 10; taf = 400; mem = 40; shin = 300, yod = 10, chet = 8, all of which adds up to 770.

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they choose for their businesses (a rental car company based in Kfar Chabad is called 770 Rent a Car and a radio station is called 770 Radio Live).17 However, street addresses must be coordinated with the municipal authorities and this is not possible everywhere. Chabad Lubavitch of Ontario is one of the places where such a request was approved. Thus, the numbers 613 and 770 are full-fledged symbols with a prominent function in the urban environment. Another significant Jewish symbol in Vaughan is the menorah installed outside Chabad buildings. The menorah, a holder for the candles that are lit on the festival of Hanukkah, is a particularly visible sign of Jewish culture—especially outside of Israel—due to the chronological proximity of Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. For years, non-Jews have been aware of this overlap, to the point where some mistakenly assume that Hanukkah is the Jewish Christmas. Chabad, apparently understanding the potential of the Hanukkah “brand” for Jews and non-Jews, adopted the menorah as one of its symbols. A specially designed menorah, unique to Chabad, stands outside its institutions all year long, not just on Hanukkah. In this way, the menorah, which belongs to all Jews, becomes a particular emblem of Chabad.

Flags, streets signs and license plates Israeli flags are very common in Vaughan. In the public sector, they can be seen on flagpoles in front of Jewish day schools (but as we shall see, not all of them) and institutions with a Zionist outlook. The Israeli flag flies beside the Canadian flag, as required by law. The visibility of Israeli flags, which also symbolize Zionism, the Jewish national movement, is another feature of “Jewish Toronto” and evidence of the broad support for the State of Israel and Zionism among the city’s Jews and Jewish communal institutions. A micro study of flags in Vaughan reveals deeper strata within Jewish Toronto, which can be illustrated by two examples. The first is the difference in height between the Israeli and Canadian flags at the city’s Jewish schools. It appears that Leo Baeck Day School differs from Netivot HaTorah Day School and United Synagogue Day School on this issue. At Leo Baeck, the Canadian and Israeli flags are on the same flagpole, with the Israeli flag lower than the Canadian flag, whereas at the other two schools, the flags are hoisted on separate flagpoles and fly at the same height. The differences 17 See Chapter 7.

“Jewish Toronto”: Street Names, Signs, and Symbols

might have a legal explanation: according to Canadian regulations, the Canadian flag must not be “displayed in a position inferior to any other flag or ensign.” This applies when another flag is on the same mast. In the case of two poles, however, they can be flown at the same height. Another interpretation is that the differences are related to the extent of identification with Zionism and the State of Israel. While Leo Baeck is affiliated with the Reform movement and liberal in outlook, the other two schools are fervently Zionistic and unwavering in their support of Israel. Netivot HaTorah is affiliated with Mizrachi, a right-wing religious-Zionist movement, and United Synagogue is a traditional religious-Zionist school run by the Conservative movement with very strong ties to the State of Israel. Israeli emissaries have been working at these schools for decades, and the Hebrew language is taught using the Hebrew-in-Hebrew immersion technique. All this fits in with the school’s decision to hoist the Israeli flag as high as allowed by law—on a par with the Canadian flag. The fact that Leo Baeck chooses to fly two flags on one mast, with the Israeli flag lower down (even if this is dictated by law), when it could have separate flagpoles and fly both flags at the same level, seems to show something about the school’s attitude toward Zionism and the State of Israel. With Leo Baeck and Netivot HaTorah situated right next to one another, there is no question that the principal of Leo Baeck sees the Netivot HaTorah flags on a daily basis, so if the Israeli flag continues to be flown below the Canadian flag at his school, one can only assume that it is a deliberate choice. The second example is the role of the Israeli flag at Eitz Chaim, an ultra-Orthodox day school. Eitz Chaim is moderate as far as such schools go, but its identification with Zionism and the State of Israel is very far from that of the schools discussed above. There is only one flag in the schoolyard of Eitz Chaim: the Canadian flag. Nevertheless, because the school receives financial support from the Jewish Federations of Canada, which identifies with Zionism and Israel, the Federation insists that the Israeli flag be flown in the yard at least once a year, on Israel’s Independence Day. Indeed, that is the only day of the year on which one sees an Israeli flag at Eitz Chaim. The Jewishness of Toronto is also apparent in signage on the main streets that is clearly Jewish in content. These signs fall into two categories: billboards and signs on shops and offices. The billboards, of medium size, appeal to the Jewish public to contribute to the Jewish National Fund, Zionist organizations and the institutions of the local Jewish community. Billboards near the synagogues announce prayer times and community  activities.

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The  fact that signs with a Zionist message are also posted near ultraOrthodox institutions—a practice that is not at all common in Israel, for example—says a great deal about the tolerance of the Toronto Jewish community in all its sectors. Indeed, Jews from across the spectrum have been living alongside each other peacefully for generations. The signs over shops and offices attract attention in that many are also written in Hebrew. Grocery stores and supermarkets post signs with the word “kosher” in English or Hebrew along with a kashrut seal. The Sobeys supermarket chain has gone even further: It designated one of its largest stores in greater Toronto a “kosher market,” and 80 percent of the items it stocks are kosher. The store has its own kosher bakery and kosher butcher shop, and carries many items from Israel, including dairy products. Only a very small section of the store is stocked with packaged food items that are not kosher. The store is located in downtown Thornhill and most of the Jews of Vaughan, as well as Jews from northern Toronto, end up shopping there at some time (regardless of the fact that there are other kosher shops and restaurants in Vaughan and northern Toronto). A huge illuminated “kosher” sign over the entrance is lit up at night and visible from a distance. License plate numbers also add to the Jewish landscape. The vehicle registration authorities in Toronto allow car owners to choose their own license plate numbers, and it is permissible to use letters or a combination of numbers and letters. So, there are cars that sport Jewish/Israeli license plates. Cars can be seen with plates reading TEL-AVIV and HADAR, and a well-known Jewish doctor, who also performs circumcisions, drives around with a license plate that says MILA (circumcision).

Conclusion Over the last few decades, a “Jewish Toronto” has emerged, attested to by a significant display of Jewish visual culture in the public domain of northern Metropolitan Toronto. These manifestations of Jewishness range from Jewish/Israeli street names and addresses imbued with Jewish meaning, to license plates incorporating Hebrew words, Israeli flags, Jewish symbols, and signs with Jewish and Hebrew content. All this is made possible by an aggregate of compelling “Jewish” variables and an aggregate of compelling “Torontonian-Canadian” variables. By “Jewish” variables I mean a large body of Jews (some of them Israeli), tolerant of other viewpoints and actively Jewish; the economic and political power of such a group; extensive

“Jewish Toronto”: Street Names, Signs, and Symbols

land reserves in the hands of a Jewish developer; and the developer’s pursuit of large-scale residential and institutional building projects on this land. By “Torontonian-Canadian” variables I mean the Canadian policy of promoting multiculturalism and the practice of allowing building developers to choose street names. Yet another factor is the tolerance of Torontonian society for visual manifestations of ethnic or national culture, apparently influenced by the national policy of multiculturalism. The region north of Metropolitan Toronto serves as a good model for the creation of pockets of visual minority culture in urban public space. For such pockets of culture to take shape, the desires, economic ability, and political influence of the minority are not enough. The flexibility and good will of the majority society are no less important for translating the minority’s wishes into action.

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Chapter 9

The Failure of Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Western Canada

Jewish agricultural settlements in Western Canada began in 1884 with the colony of New Jerusalem in Saskatchewan, and ended at about the eve of the First World War. For Jews it was scarcely believable that the Canadian government was actually encouraging them to settle and purchase their own agricultural land. Such an opportunity had almost never been available to Jews during their long history in the Diaspora. Therefore, the collapse of this enterprise came as a disappointment, and has become the subject of much study.1 Yet questions remain. Why were these agricultural settlements ultimately abandoned? Why did Jews fail to leave a significant imprint on the Canadian prairies? Waves of Jewish out-migration from Eastern Europe followed pogroms at the beginning of the 1880s, at the close of the 1890s, and during the first years of the twentieth century. Most Jews went to the United States, but some came to Canada. They arrived with few resources and little background in agriculture, and consequently nearly all settled in urban centers. Yet, agricultural settlement by Jews did take place in Canada in colonies of 1 See, for example, Arthur A. Chiel, The Jews in Manitoba (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961); Abraham J. Arnold, “The Jewish Farm Settlements of Saskatchewan: From New Jerusalem to Edenbridge,” Canadian Jewish Historical Society Journal 4, no. 1 (1980): 25–43; Anna Feldman, “Sonnenfeld—Elements of Survival and Success of a Jewish Farming Community on the Prairies, 1905–1939,” Canadian Jewish Historical Society Journal 6, no. 1 (1982): 33–53; Simon Belkin, Through Narrow Gates: A Review of Jewish Immigration, Colonization and Immigrant Aid Work in Canada (1840–1940) (Montreal: Canadian Jewish Congress and the Jewish Colonization Association, 1966).

The Failure of Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Western Canada

thirty to fifty Jewish families. A similar pattern occurred in Argentina and the United States. All of them were ultimately failures. The only successful examples of Jewish agricultural settlements during this period were in Palestine, but there, as we shall see, the pattern was quite different.

The beginning of Jewish agricultural settlement in Canada In general, a Jewish colony in Western Canada consisted of single farms, one to each family, which included living quarters, a barnyard, and an area of about 160 acres. At the center of the colony was a space where educational and religious institutions could be placed. Individual farms might be as much as ten miles from this center. Usually these Jewish colonies were organized by immigrant groups. Two of the settlements were established by the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), a company for general assistance to Jews established in 1891 by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. As with other ethnic groups, the Canadian government provided each settler with 160 acres of virgin soil. The settler had only to pledge to build a house and other farm structures, and to cultivate at least 35 acres for three years. This requirement for land improvement and purchase of agricultural equipment was not so easily met. Often a Jewish household had to invest their entire savings in the enterprise.2 The first Jewish colony in Western Canada was established in 1884 near Moosomin in Eastern Saskatchewan. This colony was called New Jerusalem and was established even earlier than the Ukrainian, Dukhobor, Polish, Rumanian, and Hungarian settlements in the Canadian West. Prior to the First World War, fifteen Jewish colonies in the three western provinces were established, the majority in Saskatchewan. After the First World War, no new colonies were established. Some Jewish farmers did operate outside the framework of colonies, but generally as individuals near cities, supplying dairy and vegetable products.3 2 Louis Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews: A Social and Economic Study of Jews in Canada in the 1930s (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 1939), 217–243, 388–391; idem, “Jewish Agriculture in Canada,” YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 5 (1950): 207–210; Judith Laikin Elkin, “Goodnight, Sweet Gaucho: A Revisionist View of the Jewish Agricultural Experiment in Argentina,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 67, no. 3 (1978): 208– 223; Leonard G. Robinson, “Agricultural Activities of the Jews in America,” The American Jewish Year Book (September 1912–October 1913): 55–114; Aryeh Tartakower, Jewish Settlement in the Diaspora [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: n.p., 1959), 195–234. 3 Belkin, Through Narrow Gates, 82; Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews, 224; Jewish National Archives in Montreal, JCA file, 48, letter to Norman Black, March 13, 1913.

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The abandonment of the Jewish colonies Today one cannot find a single Jewish agricultural community in Western Canada. A few Jewish farmers remain, but scattered among non-Jewish neighbors and not as part of a Jewish rural community. A survey conducted in the early 1980s indicated that in the three Canadian provinces there were about 26,000 Jews, but no more than one hundred families engaged in agriculture.4 The process of abandoning the colonies began early. In the five major agricultural colonies in Saskatchewan and Alberta (Hirsch, Lipton, Sonnenfeld, Edenbridge, and Rumsey) the number of Jewish families dropped from 239 in 1911 to only 157 in 1931.5 In Canada in general, the number fell from 631 in 1921 to 477 in 1931.6 It is true that physical conditions were difficult, and resulted in economic failures, but the Mormons who settled at the same period encountered similar failures, but did not abandon their colonies.7 Nor can we say that a predisposition to an urban way of life led Jews to abandon their farms. Rather, one must examine religious and cultural reasons unique to Jews to understand why these agricultural colonies disappeared.

The absence of an ideological motivation At first, the Canadian government preferred settlers of an English origin, but as these did not arrive in mass numbers the government turned to other ethnic groups.8 At the start of the 1890s, the Canadian government went as far as approaching Jewish organizations in Canada and suggested that they might turn over to them areas required for a huge colony in Manitoba that could be populated by 2,000 families. The government even suggested that they might allow a degree of autonomy to Jews to maintain their culture and religion without constraints. For example, they might be allowed to

4 Bernard L. Vigod, The Jews in Canada (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1984), 2, 14–17. 5 Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews, 227. 6 Vigod, The Jews in Canada, 9. 7 John C. Lehr, “Mormon Settlement Morphology in Southern Alberta,” The Albertan Geographic 8 (1972): 6–13. 8 Hansgeorg Schlichtmann, “Ethnic Themes in Geographical Research on Western Canada,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 9, no. 2 (1977): 9–41.

The Failure of Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Western Canada

transfer the official day of rest from Sunday to Saturday.9 Actually, the government had little intention of carrying out these suggestions. But there was no doubt that the social environment in Canada was hospitable to Jewish settlement. The land could be obtained without cost and there was talk of Canadian government assistance, and modest aid from Jewish philanthropic institutions. Yet, Jewish settlers had no underlying ideological reason for becoming farmers. No religious, political or national goals were at stake. Not even the objective of creating the new Jewish socio-economic order was offered as an ideal.10 This was quite different from the situation in Palestine (and even a few locations in the United States), where Jewish agricultural settlement was motivated by an ideology.11 True, the JCA, and Baron Hirsch himself, did believe that a Jewish vocational shift would be helpful in lowering antiSemitism among gentiles. However, the settlers helped by the JCA did not turn to agriculture for this reason, but simply to make a living.12

Limited assistance Only two of the colonies (established by the JCA) could render significant assistance to the settlers. The other colonies were established by “indigent Jewish immigrants with little money and with even less agricultural experience.”13 The assistance of the JCA to the Jewish settlements included loans and grants to build synagogues, schools, and cultural centers, and subsidizing the salaries of Jewish teachers. They also provided some agricultural advice. But the assistance was limited and did not come close to what the Mormon settlers in Western Canada received from the Mormon

9 Jewish National Archives in Montreal, Baron Hirsch Institute file, letter from the Secretary of the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture to the Secretary of the Baron Hirsch Institute, January 1892; Benjamin G. Sack, “A Historical Opportunity Forfeited,” Canadian Jewish Year Book (1941): 98–107. 10 Belkin, Through Narrow Gates, 52–53, 85–86; Arnold, “The Jewish Farm Settlements,” 27, 30; Tartakower, Jewish Settlement, 246, 257. 11 Abraham Menes, “The Am Oylom Movement,” YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 4 (1949): 16. 12 Belkin, Through Narrow Gates, 64–69; Theodore Norman, An Outstretched Arm: A History of the Jewish Colonization Association (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1985), 19–22. 13 Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews, 207.

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Church in Utah.14 Actually, the JCA’s involvement in the settlement process had some negative effects due to conflicts connected to paternalism.15

Geographic isolation The Jewish colonies in Western Canada were located in most instances thousands of miles away from centers of Jewish life in New York and Montreal. Winnipeg was the closest city where one could fine a Jewish community with an orderly existence. But the closest colony to Winnipeg was Bender Hamlet (Narcisse) some seventy-two miles away, which, considering transportation in those days, required a journey of over a halfday. Colonies in Eastern Saskatchewan were located 200 to 360 miles away, and colonies in Alberta were over 700 miles distant. Considering these distances, a colony could maintain only limited ties with mainstream Jewish life, the only way of life that was acceptable for Jews from Eastern Europe. Besides their detachment from Jewish centers, the colonies were separated from each other. There is no evidence of any ties between the Jewish colonies. There is even some doubt that Jewish colonies knew anything about each other. On the other hand, Mennonite and Mormon colonies, which also attached an importance to the maintenance of culture and religion, were quite close to one another, and had strong internal ties.16

Difficulties maintaining a religious and cultural life Most of the Jewish settlers, especially at the beginning of the settlement process, were Orthodox religious Jews.17 However, maintaining Jewish Law in the settlements was almost impossible. First, it was difficult to assemble a quorum of Jews to hold prayer services three times a day. Even the observance of Sabbath and festivals was a problem. The distances between 14 Lehr, “Mormon Settlement Morphology.” 15 Feldman, “Sonnenfeld—Elements of Survival,” 46–47, 49; Arnold, “The Jewish Farm Settlements,” 37, 39; Tartakower, Jewish Settlement, 252. 16 On Mormon settlement in Alberta, see, for example, Lehr, “Mormon Settlement Morphology.” On the settlement of the Mennonites in Manitoba, see John Warkentin, “Mennonite Agricultural Settlements of Southern Manitoba,” Geographical Review 49, no. 3 (1959): 342–369. 17 Abraham J. Arnold, “New Jerusalem on the Prairies: Welcoming the Jews,” in Visions of the New Jerusalem: Religious Settlement on the Prairies, ed. Benjamin G. Smillie (Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1983), 100–101, 103; Jewish News, August 20, 1909, 1.

The Failure of Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Western Canada

the farms and the center were too great, and in the winter the climatic conditions in Western Canada were hazardous. In the summer it was easier, but a farmer would have to violate Sabbath laws concerning the distance one could be allowed to walk to get to a synagogue. Secondly, a minimum population size was required to maintain vital religious services such as a ritual bath (miqveh) and rabbinic presence at marriages.18 Consider also the difficulty finding someone to slaughter an animal according to religious specifications, or to perform a circumcision.19 Only in the largest colonies could these functions be performed at a center. Moreover, even settlers who were not scrupulous about observing religious commandments were not prepared to forgo a Jewish education for their children. A high school education for children within the Jewish educational framework could only be guaranteed in Winnipeg.20 Bachelor farmers, and children of farmers, found it difficult to find a Jewish mate in a small community, and the absence of ties with other colonies precluded that source. Only in the cities was it possible to find a Jewish mate.21 A critical mass that would have encouraged other potential settlers was never attained in these colonies. On the contrary, the loss of a single settler created a snowball effect on others. Distance eroded the social framework of the Jewish settlers. Unlike Palestine, where Jews lived in nucleated villages, the Canadian model required separated farmsteads. Why? Beginning in the 1880s, the Canadian government did not allow settlement of ethnic groups in homogeneous areas and was adverse to the creation of nucleated villages on an ethnic basis.22 Before, in the 1870s, these options were present and led to the creation of quasi-Mennonite autonomy.23 But the desire of the Canadian 18 Belkin, Through Narrow Gates, 73; Shlomo Ganzfried, Kitzur Shulchan Arukh (The Abridged Code of Jewish Law) [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1977), paragraphs 153–156; Feldman, “Sonnenfeld—Elements of Survival,” 43. 19 Feldman, “Sonnenfeld—Elements of Survival,” 43. 20 Chiel, The Jews in Manitoba, 46; Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews, 214–215; Feldman, “Sonnenfeld—Elements of Survival,” 49; Jewish National Archives in Montreal, file MB1–A–4128, Hirsch Colony 1891–1934. 21 Belkin, Through Narrow Gates, 85. 22 Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews, 207; Abraham J. Arnold, “Jewish Immigration to Western Canada in the 1880s,” Canadian Jewish Historical Society Journal 1, no. 2 (1977): 81–82, 84–94; cf. above, note 9; Jewish National Archives in Montreal, file ABI–A–4128, letter from K. McDiarmid to Friedman, November 3, 1892. 23 Mervyn Busteed, “East European Settlers in Ontario and the Canadian Prairies,” in Studies in Overseas Settlement and Population, ed. Anthony Lemon and Norman Pollock

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government to assimilate settlers into the general Anglo-Canadian stream led to a change in policy. Jewish settlement could not be permitted except as isolated colonies. The JCA officials in Western Canada were aware of the problems of the Jews and advised them to settle only where a relatively large Jewish population existed: “We strongly advise settlers against taking up homes in isolated places and we find that the isolate Jewish farmer seldom if ever remains on his homestead after residing three or four years. He seems to be feeling the want of congregational life, all the communal necessities so indispensable to every Jew.”24 One attempt was made by Jews to form a nucleated village, Bender Hamlet (future Narcisse) colony. It was established in 1903, north of Winnipeg, Manitoba by a group of settlers from Russia. Yet it also proved to be a failure. The village was planned with living quarters and public institutions grouped together. But within a short time the settlers found themselves torn between communal advantages and economic drawbacks because of the vast distances to their farm areas.25 The farmers could not manage farming when their houses were too great a distance away. Some settlers abandoned the village and lived on the farm. So, the nucleated village proved no better at dealing with the problems of the Canadian prairie than the dispersed model.26

Conclusion Jewish agricultural settlement in the Canadian prairies encompassed about fifteen colonies and extended over three provinces. But these settlements all failed. While difficult physical conditions took their toll, that was not the main problem. Primarily, the absence of an ideological motivation for settling in Canada, geographic isolation from other Jewish communities, and inability to maintain an orderly Jewish religious and cultural life, undermined these Jewish agricultural settlements. In this respect, the (New York: Longman, 1980), 243–266; cf. above, note 16. 24 Jewish National Archives in Montreal, JCA file, 48, letter to Norman Black, March 13, 1913. 25 Cyril Edel Leonoff, The Architecture of Jewish Settlements in the Prairies: A Pictorial History (Edmonton: The Jewish Historical Society of Western Canada, 1975), 22; Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews, 224. 26 Rosenberg, Canada’s Jews, 224.

The Failure of Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Western Canada

Jewish settlement problems in Canada did not differ significantly from similar failures in Argentina and the United States.27 The colonies never reached that critical mass that might have supported a variety of Jewish religious and cultural activities internally. Outside help from Jewish philanthropic organizations to maintain a Jewish way of life never materialized. The choice then became either to abandon Judaism, or to abandon the agricultural colony.

27 On the Argentine example, see Laikin Elkin, “Goodnight, Sweet Gaucho.” For similar findings about the United States, see Louis J. Swichkow, “The Jewish Agricultural Colony of Arpin, Wisconsin,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 54, no. 1 (1964): 82–91. As Swichkow explains, “the primary reasons for the ultimate dissolution of the colony were the lack of secondary educational facilities, social contacts with fellow Jews and above all, the fear of intermarriage.” The author continues by citing from a letter written by one of the settlers in February 1958, who inter alia emphasizes: “It was not the hard work that discouraged those wonderful people, but the lack of opportunities for the child who graduated from eighth grade in the one-room school house. . . . For the boy and girl reaching manhood and womanhood, it meant no pursuing of the arts, no chance to meet a mate, no future. So the children left for the cities and the parents followed, one by one.”

193

Bibliography

Archives Arieh Gini Collection Jerusalem Municipal Archives Jewish National Archives in Montreal Kibbutz Ein HaNatziv Archives Kibbutz Kfar Etzion Archives Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu Archives Kibbutz Yavne Archives Labor Movement Archives The Central Zionist Archives = CZA The Institute for the Study of Religious Zionism Archives The Knesset Archives The Religious Kibbutz Movement Archives Tirat Zvi Archives

Newspapers and Journals (Hebrew) Alonim; Amudim; Baalot HaNoar; BaTira; Dapim; Globes; HaAchdut; HaPoel HaTzair; HaTzfira; HaTzofe; HaZman; Kfar Chabad; Kvutzatenu; Netiva; Nivenu; Reshumot; Shavuon; Shavuon Sde Eliyahu; The Land of Israel and Its Religious Life; Tziunim; Yediot HaKibbutz HaDati; Zeraim.

Books and Articles Aaronsohn, Ran. “Stages in the Development of the Settlements of the First Aliyah.” In The First Aliyah [Hebrew], vol. 1, edited by Mordechai Eliav, 25–84. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Ministry of Defense, 1981. Almog, Shmuel. “Alfred Nossig; A Reappraisal.” Studies in Zionism 7 (Spring 1983): 14–15.

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203

Index

A

Abramov, Shneor Zalman, 121 Achuzat Bayit, 36n25, 39 Agudat Yisrael, 114-15, 122, 125-26, 142 Alberta, 188, 190 Allgemeine Jüdische KolonisationsOrganisation (AJKO), 43 Aronovsky, Meir, 120 Ashkenazi Jews, 14 avodah ivrit (Hebrew labor), 41, 45

B

Bader, Yohanan, 121, 144 Beit Chabad, 171 Beit HaKerem, 39 Beit Moshiach, 181 Beit Shean Valley, 60-62, 64, 68, 70, 77-78, 80, 90-91 Bender Hamlet (Narcisse), 190 Berlin, Naftali Zvi Yehuda, Rabbi, 62 Bernstein, Zvi, 90 Bialystok Association, 40-42, 44n16, 45-46, 50, 53 Biqur Cholim (“visiting the sick”), 19 British Mandate, the, 8, 26, 39, 111-12, 178n11 Brooklyn, 146, 152-54, 156, 160, 162n46, 163, 181 Buenos Aires, 166

C

Carcur, 40 Caro, Joseph, 7 Chabad movement, 9, 146-71, 176, 178-82 Chovevei Zion Movement, 62 Communism, 174

D

Diaspora, 24, 114, 155, 159, 164, 167, 170-71, 186 Draft Land Bill, 111-13, 119, 123, 130, 132, 141 Duchan, Moshe, Dr., 111

E

Eastern Europe, 13, 45, 56, 62, 174, 179, 186, 190 Eastern Jezreel Valley, 64 Ein HaNatziv, 61, 70, 73 Ein Tzurim, 68, 72 Elon, Menachem, 107, 108n4, 109-10, 140 Etzion Block, 80, 90 Even Yisrael, 31, 32n8

F

Fifth Aliyah, 86 First World War, 8, 40-41, 50, 52, 55, 186-87 Fisher, Michael, 176

G

Galilee, 13-15, 90, 105 General Labor Confederation, 78 Givat Rambam, 86 Goldstein, Moshe, 89 Granovsky, Alexander, 168 Gross, Shlomo-Yaakov, 115, 118, 122, 126 Guttmacher, Eliyahu, Rabbi, 61

H

HaKibbutz HaDati. See Religious Kibbutz Movement Halakha, 11-12, 32-33, 36-39, 69, 71-72, 79, 81, 107n1, 114-15, 122, 125, 131, 133, 139

Index

HaMerkaz LeShikun, 86 Hanukkah, 161, 171, 182 Hapoel HaMizrachi, 9, 51-52, 56-63, 66, 82-106 HaPoel HaTzair, 47-48, 50 Hasidism, 155-57 Havat Kinneret, 48 Hazani, Michael, 90, 100, 102 Hebron Mountains, 72-73 Herzog, Chaim, 108 Hirsch, Maurice de, Baron, 187, 189 Histadrut (union) of Judea, 48, 87, 94n38, 97 Holocaust, 174, 176, 179 Horodeshitz, Yitzchak, 42, 43n9

J

Jaffa, 14, 44n16, 48 Jewish Agency, 60, 61n24, 63n29 Jewish agricultural settlements, 9, 12, 14, 186-87, 192 Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), 187, 189-90, 192 Jewish National Fund (JNF), 51, 52n45, 60-63, 67, 87, 94-99, 183 Jewish religious law, 9, 11

K

Kalisher, Zvi Hirsch, Rabbi, 61 Kehilat Zion society, 86 Kelmer, Moshe, 96, 102-3, 117n39, 118, 122, 125-26, 139 Kfar Chabad, 151, 156, 160-63, 168, 170, 178-79, 182 Kfar Etzion, 68, 72 Kfar Uriya, 40-53 kibbutzim, 8, 24, 28, 29n56, 54-58, 60-81, 83-84, 88-90, 97, 105 Kiryat Herzog, 105-6 Kiryat Moshe, 45-46 Kiryat Shmuel, 86, 100, 102-3, 105-6 Klein, Binyamin, Rabbi, 162 Klinghoffer, Yitzchak, 136, 143 Knesset, 107-114, 120-21, 124, 133, 137-38, 142-45 Konin, Shlomo, Rabbi, 163 Kook, Rav, 44n16, 46 Krasner, Eliezer, 47-50 Kushnir, Yosef, 121

L

Land Law, 9, 107, 110-116, 137-38, 141, 143-44 Landau, Moshe, 111, 115, 117, 119, 121, 124, 127-30, 134-35, 138-45 Lebovic, Joseph, 176 Lebovic Wolf, 176 Los Angeles, 163, 174

M

Maimonides, 7, 11, 33, 110, 116, 118, 122-23, 125, 139n102, 142, 162n46 Manitoba, 188, 190n16, 192 Manshevitz, Moshe Mordechai, 42-43, 44n16, 45, 47, 51 Massuot Yitzchak, 68, 72-74 Meah Shearim, 32n8, 34, 36 Melamed, Avraham, 109 Melbourne, 164-65 Mennonite, 190 Merhavia, 48 Meron, Yaakov, 140 Milan, 164 Mishab Housing Construction & Development Company, 85-87, 99, 102-5, 122 Mishkenot Yisrael, 31, 32n8 Mishnah, 7, 11, 29 Mizrachi Youth, 85 Montreal, 174-75, 178, 190 Mormons, 54, 188 moshavah, 15, 21-22, 39, 41, 44-46, 48-49, 52-53, 59

N

Nahalat Shiva, 31, 32n8 Nahalat Yitzchak, 86 Nahlon, Aharon, 58, 65 National Religious Party (NRP), 109 New Jerusalem, 186 New York, 9, 146, 149-50, 152, 154, 156, 158-62, 165-66, 168, 170, 174, 176, 178, 181, 190 Nir-Rafalkes, Nahum, 122, 126, 143

O

Old City of Jerusalem, 8, 12-13, 17n19, 18, 31, 38 Old Yishuv, 31-32, 39, 44n16, 45, 117 Olmert, Ehud, 166

205

206

Index

Ontario, Lake, 174-75 Osnia, Baruch, 129, 135n91 Ottoman law, 107, 112-13, 118-23, 127, 138-40, 143

P

Palestine, 9-10, 13-14, 21, 24, 26, 28, 30, 54-58, 60-61, 64, 66-67, 71, 74, 76, 78, 81, 187, 189, 191 Petach Tiqva, 39, 44n16, 47-48, 50, 58-59, 87, 105-6, 117 Poalei Zion, 47, 122 Poriya, 40 Porush, Menachem, 114, 121n48, 126, 128, 142-43

R

Rafiah, 42, 44n16 Rakover, Nahum, 107, 108n4, 110, 120, 127-30, 133-34, 137, 141-42 Ramat Shlomo, 165 Ramon, Ilan, 176 Raveh, Yitzchak, 111 Rehavia, 39 Religious Kibbutz Movement, 8, 54-56, 58, 60-71, 75-81, 89, 105, 143 Richmond Hill, 175 Ruchama, 40, 45 Rudges Group, 56, 58-62, 64, 77n65 Ruppin, Arthur, Dr., 42nn5-6, 42n8, 43, 45, 47n22, 48n31, 49n35

S

Sabbath, 7, 12, 15, 20-21, 27, 29, 44n6, 51, 66, 71-72, 74, 76, 78-79, 88, 98-99, 161, 167n43, 171, 190-91 Safed, 13-14 Saskatchewan, 176, 186-88, 190 Schneerson, Chaya Mushka, Rabbanit (daughter of Rayatz), 163-64 Schneerson, Menachem Mendel, Rabbi (Ramam), 147-71, 181 Schneerson, Yosef Yitzchak, Rabbi (Rayatz), 147-69 Sde Eliyahu, 61 Second Aliyah, 40-41, 45, 48-49, 52-53 Sejera, 48, 50

Shaki, Shalom Avraham, 115, 119, 123, 130, 132-33 Sharona, 40 shemitah, 8, 11, 23, 46, 73 Shneur Zalman of Liady, Rabbi, 149 Shragai, Shlomo Zalman, 88-89 Shulchan Arukh (the Code of Jewish Law), 7, 11, 33, 35, 37, 69, 110, 117, 124, 126, 137, 142 Swiss law, 134-36, 139

T

Talmud, 7, 29, 36, 110, 116, 128, 131, 140, 142, 152, 154 Talmud Torah, 19, 27, 35 Tartakover, Yaacov, 111 Temple, the, 8-9, 11, 14-15, 18, 23, 36, 75-76, 150, 152-55, 158-60, 163, 166-68 Second Temple, the, 13 Third Temple, 159, 170 Thornhill, 175-76, 178, 180, 184 Tirat Zvi, 61 Torah, 7, 11, 14, 18-19, 21, 24-25, 27-29, 32-33, 44, 46, 48, 57-58, 66, 69-70, 73-74, 76, 85, 114-17, 126-27, 142, 149, 151, 155, 157, 160, 162, 167, 176, 180-81 Torah VaAvodah, 89-93, 99, 104 Toronto, 169n68, 172-85 Transjordan, 42 Tzora, 50

U

Unna, Moshe, 65-66, 111, 119, 128, 132, 135, 143-44

V

Vaughan, 173-84

W

Wallenberg, Raoul, 176 War of Independence, 55-56, 68, 70, 77 Western Negev, 90 Western Wall, the, 13 Wilovsky, Yaakov Dovid, Rabbi (Ridvaz), 46 Winnipeg, 167n63, 175, 190-92 Wisoker, Koppel, 50-51

Index

World Mizrachi movement, 85 World Zionist Organization, 40, 60, 67

Y

Yadin, Uri, Dr., 120, 128-29, 132, 134, 139-41 Yosef, Dov, 111, 120, 143 Young Turk Revolution, 40

Z

Zagorodesky, Melech, Dr., 43, 49 Zilber, Israel, 176 Zionism, 14, 60-61, 102, 105, 178, 182-83 Zionist Executive, 51 Zionist Labor Movement, 78 Zmora, Moshe, 135, 139

207