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For all those interested in the debate about Zionism and the Chareidim – An excellent, well sourced, and highly readable new book (in Hebrew) has recently been published called החרדים והארץ by Refael Rafaelov.
The main points he makes are as follows:
1. The “Old Yishuv” was proactively involved in attempting to found new agricultural settlements decades before the “First Aliyah”. The reasons those attempts failed until the 1870’s were due to factors outside of their control, which began to change in the last third of the 19th century. This fact was formally acknowledged in writing by no less than David BG himself…
2. The history of the Chovevei Zion movement, and the central role of Chareidim in its founding, is discussed and documented. How the Maskilim and later the Zionists hijacked the movement for their purposes is also discussed.
3. The settlements of Petach Tikvah, Rosh Pina, and Mikveh Yisrael were founded by Chareidim from the “Old Yishuv”, in the decade and a half before the “First Aliyah”. They became secular later on. How and why that happened is discussed at length. (See item nine.)
4. Six out of seven of the first settlements built by the “First Aliyah” were at first religious (except for “Gedera”).
5. The official Israeli version of history makes a big deal about the secular socialist ביל״ו movement, and how they supposedly led the “first Aliyah” despite the fact that only 20 of their people ever actually made it to the Land, and the only Yishuv they founded by themselves was the aforementioned “Gedera”.
6. That is directly due to the Mapai – Labor dictatorship (who controlled Israel as a de facto one party state for the first 30 years) rewriting history in their own image.
7. The “Second Aliyah” brought the first major influx of virulently secularist settlers, but most of the physical labor (the much vaunted “Avodah Ivrit”) was done by religious Sephardi and Yemenite immigrants who also began arriving in the Land at the same time (for very different reasons…) The Maskilim preferred writing poetry about drying the swamps to actually doing it themselves…
8. The secular settlements were dependent on financial support from Jews abroad, no less than the “Old Yishuv” was. (The Kibbutz Movement was never a financial success story, even after the State, but the post-48 era is not the subject of the book.)
9. Enormous efforts were made by the secular Zionists of the Second Aliyah to lead the children of the earlier religious settlers away from Yiddishkeit, mainly by infiltrating existing settlements and taking over the educational system. These efforts were unfortunately “successful”.
10. The battle for and against Shmittah observance is discussed, as well as the relationship of the Baron Edmund Rothschild to Yiddishkeit and his distaste for the nihilistic/bohemian ideology and practices of the Socialists.
All of these things shaped the relationship between the Chareidim and the secular State down to today, although that is not the primary focus of the book. The main subject and focus is the Chareidi contribution to the early stages of building the Land, and the secular Zionists rewriting of history to minimize that contribution. The overwhelming majority of the sources quoted are from people who were/are far from being Chareidim themselves, including contemporary journalists of the era being discussed as well as secular or RZ academics. This is NOT a hagiography either in style or sourcing of content. (Agav, some of his points contradict hagiographic misconceptions of the Old Yishuv from within the Chareidi world…) Check it out yourselves.
I’ll read the book.
Please read החוט המשולש by Yair Sheleg, also in Hebrew.
YYA, sounds like an interesting book. I think it says similar things to what many posters are saying here: that there were religious people who participated in the settlement. If you don’t want to call them religious zionists, but call them haredim who arrived to dig wells, shoin.
> 8. The secular settlements were dependent on financial support from Jews abroad, no less than the “Old Yishuv” was. (The Kibbutz Movement was never a financial success story
Indeed. According to research I saw – when Sochnut centralized donor funds and re-directed them to kbibutzim in 1920-30s, this decreased development of manufacturing in Tel Aviv area [kibutzim were losing money, while manufacturing was profitable], leading to less German Jews deciding to come until it was too late. To be totally fair, acquisition of land enabled creating the state and provide physical protection beyond “city states” of Yerushalaim and Tel-Aviv.
YYA> Israel as a whole remained stuck in Socialist shackles for the first 30 years of its existence, until Menachem Begin came to power and broke the Labor monopoly
I agree with the whole post.
R Schlesinger seems to be an interesting figure, indeed in between different worlds. On one hand, he was against secular education both in his native Hungary and in EY, on the other hand he wanted to reform haluka system that supported EY Jews that was not suitable to accommodate mass arrivals that he anticipated and was seemingly not just helping to found Petach Tikva but also sympathetic to some zionist ideas.
Seemingly, our silly discussion is reflected in academic literature, To quote one paper: “considered by some scholars to be a forerunner of ultra-Orthodoxy, but by others as a forerunner of Zionism.” He is an interesting figure, and no less controversial than, say, R Kook, even as he did not necessarily leave many followers (where are all these charedi farmers now?). As his utopic peaceful world were to happen under the wise Ottoman Sultan, hard to say what he would say about charedi soldiers. See below some interesting quotes I found, hope they are yashar.
It seems that R Schlesinger supported agricultural activities for those who are not suited for learning – first in Hungary, then in EY, but in religious setting. Women were not allowed to read external literature, go to theatre, attend simchos without separation and wearing wigs (duh).
I am a little confused: in one place, he writes: You should only teach that [the secular subjects] which they must learn, and only by a non-Jew—this is a law that cannot be abrogated. In another (maybe in EY context), to the opposite, suggests learning professions in Hebrew.
The society that he proposed had its own set of rules that differed from those of the kollel, the avant garde group that was designed to lead the society. The kollel had more stringent rules, and anyone who joined it was obligated to follow the behaviours characteristic of sects. These stringencies included immersion in the mikveh and carrying one’ s bed on his shoulders rather than in a horse-drawn wagon. he proposed organizing the people according to the biblical model including family units, banners, and 12 tribal units. Members of each tribe would wear uniform clothing and would speak only Hebrew. central leadership would include three religious leaders headed by a nasi, who would sit in Jerusalem, and would be governed by a supreme council consisting of representatives from each tribe and from the diaspora Jewish community. The council would work towards building a Jewish entity in Palestine that would be recognized by the ruling Ottoman Empire.
Schlesinger’ s excommunication by the heads of the Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem was caused by a number of factors, including his criticism of the Hungarian kollel for not distributing money to new immigrants to Israel, his leniency vis-à-vis the ban of Rabbeinu Gershom, his pretentious messianism, and the halakhic rulings in his book Beit Yosef hahadash that were not supported by any Orthodox approbations .. We are excommunicating, ostraciz-
ing, and prohibiting the book Beit Yosef hahadash with all types of bans and prohibitions … because it should be hidden and burned, just like all external books and the books of heretics. ” The ban was signed by Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire R. Avraham Ashkenazi, the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazim R. Meir Auerbach … Schlesinger also got into an argument with the Hungarian kollel regarding the halukkah subsidies. He demanded that subsidies be given immediately for new immigrants to the Land of Israel, which was contrary to the kollel policy of not giving support from the kollel to new immigrants during the first two years. This policy was designed to prevent the new immigrants from taking advantage of the kollel at the expense of the members who were already in Israel and who were from the original phases of its organization. The leadership of the kollel prevented Schlesinger
from receiving support and brought him to a state of abject povertyYYA, you describe a process of religious Jews in Israel becoming non-religious in the next generation.
I am sure it looked very focused for those who lived in EY at the time. But I wonder whether this sociological process is part of what was happening everywhere in the early 20th century, with the world going mad with communist ideas – either parallel to what was happening with Jews in Europe or just part of that process with new arrivals bringing their non/anti-religious attitudes with them.Times often define the events, not specific movements. As Menashe says to R Ashi in a dream “if you were to live in my generation, you would be running after me [towards A’Z] picking up your suit ..”
YYA> difference between studying a ‘trade’ = אומנות, and studying ‘secular lnowledge’ = חכמות חיצוניות.
Yes, I understand that the Rav was interested in umanut (which is an explicit Gemora Kiddushin 30 universally applicable to most parents, except R Nehorai) and not at all interested in science, which even those who were more into science, from R Gamliel to Shmuel to Rambam to R Hirsch to R Soloveitchik. would admit is relevant to some people. I still do not understand why in Hungary he insisted on non-Jewish teachers. Maybe you are right that in Hungarian contest, the school started with academic subjects, while Israeli system he envisioned was pure uneducated umanut, histadrut-style – farming and construction and not doctors and lawyers. Similar to the trade school path in Germany. Also, Hungary was real life, while his Palestinian system was a lofty dream.
I brought academic loshon as is, just to pick up the info that might be there. I am not sure what are the implications of herem. Seems like it was litvishe with hungarians disagreeing. Why was he treated harsher than r Kook, even if his on-the-ground activities were of less impact?
Also, seemingly his position on money distribution seem to indicate that the existing charedi system was built to protect benefits for the residents rather than encourage others to come – and Rav was trying to change that – enabling increased immigration.
YYA> What does this have to do with “sociological processes”?!
your example is fair as is your frustration. I am saying that similar matzav existed in other countries. Fathers with shtreimlach had children who were going to anarchist/communist/bundist meetings and got excited about those ideas [see 80% of young women in NYC voting for Mamdani after all lessons about socialism from 20th century, but I digress]. This was everywhere. Slabodka at some point sent new contingent of yeshiva bochrim from Kovno to Telshe because the previous crop of students decamped into socialism. There is a reason, R Kotler’s teachers in Minsk intercepted letters from his sister – because they were legitimately afraid that he might follow her advice to study math. R Solovechik describes meeting a mathematician Yaakov Gromer in Berlin who was Einstein’s secretary – and former talmid of Chaim Brisker, non-observant but learning gemora and describing that Einstein is a moral person but R Chaim’s chesed was at a different level …
So, those students who you describe were nto simply hostages of a group of liars, they were victims of the information dominant at the time. They also heard news, read papers, and discussed ideas with their friends. And Jewish leaders at the time did not have a good answer.
@yaakov yosef
I could kiss each and every word you wrote in your post to AAQ
it is time AAQ opens up to reality …
.
.I would appreciate if you can let me know if I’m wrong anywhere in my post.
1. The old yishuv definitely tried to make parnassah and therefore tried agriculture as well. But they didn’t seize it from anyone. In fact, they lived peacefully with their Arab/Muslim neighbors. So they might have been trying agriculture, but not for Zionist reasons.
3. It’s true that Petach Tikva and others were originally established by Haredim.
Still, would you compare those settlements to today’s settlemenents? Weren’t they established as simply a place for Jews to live in stretching out of the cities, contrary to today’s settlements which are established solely to “live the land”? Also, I wouldn’t compare them because they weren’t taken away from Muslims or even viewed by Muslims as annexed from them.
I look at these aforementioned settlements as Bnei Brak or Beit Shemesh. Again, please let me know if I’m wrong.
Also, I believe that the original split between Charedim and RZ was in Rav Kook’s times. I haven’t heard of even one big rabbi in his time who promoted his beliefs.
YYA: Every secular, Reform and Conservative Jew, virtually anywhere in the world, also, had frum great grandparents, not too long ago.
Debater, from what I know, Moses Montefiori in 1850s sponsored first Jewish places outside of Yerushalaim.
I don’t think old yishuv had any other agricultural ventures on their own. Did they?
I believe one reason those were not happening – it was just too dangerous, such were the “friendly” neighbors.
Also, zionists settlements proceeded in a similar way – by buying property.YYA> why doesn’t this make your blood boil?
I apologize if my language sounded like I am dismissing your views. I am not. I am just somewhat at peace with the fact that a lot of Jews, as well as umot haolam, followed misguided movements 100+ years ago. It happened everywhere and brought a lot uf suffering. I reserve my indignation to those who actually murdered people, such as nazis and commies, but I have some understanding of those who were swept by the ideologies of the time and thought that they bring light to the world. I’ve seen people like that, or their children, in several countries, including Israel, and many of them were sincere individuals with various types of middos.
We seem to differ on facts – the stories you mentioned are very real, but I don’t think they are typical. This is not the story that I ever heard from random people. For example, I’ve never met a sephardi who was damaged by zionist efforts. They all have different attitudes depending on their family background but none of them was captured. Same goes for Teimani, never met anyone abducted.
Tehran children is an interesting story, with the most tragic part of course is their journey thru USSR. If you didn’t read a book of interviews with the children, please do. I think I’ve met just one person who talked about his relative that arrived to Israel via that route. He was from a religious family and had two distant relatives who were fighting to accept him – one was religious and was in a kibbutz. According to my contact, both sides was motivated not only/so much by ideology but by the funds that were coming to those who will accept the kid (I am not 100% sure of the credibility of this report).
Again, I am not dismissing your position, I just have different picture what a typical experience was, and compare it with alternatives in other countries at the time. I realize that this may be a too abstract comparison for you.
Yaakov yosef to AAQ :
…. now do you begin to understand what is going on? ….
—it seems that there is an inner , unexplained resistance in AAQ’s psyche , blocking him from ‘understanding what is going on’ …
AAQ prides himself on his openmindedness and preparedness to hear
from people from other and different persuasions and their arguments
why is he closed minded when it comes to establishing what reality really is ????
.
.@Debater – If you would like to read a good short history of religious zionism, read the book I mentioned earlier in this thread, even though it’s in Hebrew.
All of the Anti-Zionists (and by extension Non-Zionists as well as Zionists who don’t live in Israel) should read it before saying the things they do about Religious Zionism. However, I doubt any will.
YYA – Thanks for your answer.
I am referring only to Rav Kook indeed because of his Frumkeit, as I feel the other RZ rabbis aren’t so confusing to us.
I do want to bring out that there is a difference of “settling the land” as the settlers in Petach Tikva, without any thought of a “state”, as you said, and RZ’s
desire for a state. So there’s one thing about settling for “living the land” and a totally different thing of doing so for/under a state.AAQ – The question is if you can compare JEWS trying to manipulate and convince, to JEWS FORCING by starving, cutting payos, taking away kippahs, and much more. We’re of course not talking of non-Jews here.
Yaakov yosefs posts are refreshing ….
.YYA> You don’t know anyone like that? Maybe that has to do with where you live and how much interaction you have with Sephardim and Teimanim aged 70 and up?
Obviously, you know more people like that. Still, I do meet enough of these groups to get some statistics. Otherwise, I would not make such a statement. If you can’t fight off the yetzer hara questioning whether I have substance when I make statements, we can as well stop this Stasi interrogation.
So, if I know 100 Sephardim and 99 of them did not have such experiences, then this is limited to 1%. Now, you know 10 people with such experiences but these are out of1000 sephardim, then it is still 1%. Obviously, there are biases, as not each of them travels to America and I did not visit all communities in Israel, but I also read and talk to people that travel. Anyway, if you can show that such experiences were prevalent – I’ll be happy to listen.
AAQ needs to be interrogated stasi like
that’s the only way to keep him in some connection with reality
otherwise he ‘ll keep on suggesting totally disconnected suggestions and inferring that the haredim are to blame for rejecting his fantasies
that’s besides his habitual changing of the goalposts smack in the middle of the game
.
YYA> There are thousands of living survivors, pictures, etc. Not enough for you?
I am not saying these horrible things did not happen. I am saying that majority of people did not go through them. Again, this is anecdotal, I may be wrong. If you’ll give me numbers showing opposite, I’ll be happy to revise my views.
> needs to be interrogated stasi like
I usually skip immature language, looking for substantive arguments if any, but this is a good illustration what could go wrong when “Torah-self-true” community will get a majority of votes. Will their increased involvement in the world lead to adopting the good things that Esav developed in the last several centuries and discard the rest [the way R Meir was able with Acher], or will it adopt new technical capabilities without using them properly. We see this danger with lots of under-developed communities, where wilde chayos are using modern weapons and propaganda technologies to subdue population and attack neighbors (this probably started 100+ years ago – would nazis & commies be that successful without modern communications and weapons?). Obviously, observant Jews are not holding at the same level, but will we be able to read population surveys, understand how non-direct democracy works, deal in international affairs. If the plan is to have a religious majority in Israel in 10 years, and a charedi majority in 20 years – start designating 1000 students of Greek in the elementary school as Rabban Gamliel did, so that they’ll be ready to lead the nation in 30 years.
YYA, I am with your history up to & including discrimination of Sephardim. After that, the question is how prevalent each of these things were.
How many sephardim wanted to join charedi schools and were prevented by the government v. how many did not want to or were prevented by schools teaching in Yiddish and general attitude towards sephardim even among charedim. (not to pile on here, but I heard from a charedi black ger who was asked directly what problems he encountered in Israel – mentioned that their kids had a hard time in Israeli charedi schools, and he quipped “we converted because of Judaism, not necessarily the Jews”. This was somewhere in 1990-2000s.)
How many parents were fooled that their children were sent to a yeshiva and sent to kibbutz instead?Again, I am aware of these stories, but I do not know whether this explains major population trends. For what I know, most Sephardim are reasonably “traditional” – either observant in large part or non-observant in some way, but still respectful of chachamim and religion in general, not like Ashkenazi leftists. So, even if someone tried, this was not very successful. At the same time, many are pro-Israel, pro-Army – and I hope that charedi kahal develops a coalition that includes these Yehudim (and their opinions and sentiments) into a grand Jewish coalition.
AAQ to yaakov yosef :
… If you can’t fight off the yetzer hara questioning whether I have substance when I make statements, we can as well stop this Stasi interrogation.
———————————-It was AAQ who first introduced the stasi into this conversation
then it is AAQ who complains that mentioning stasi is ‘immature’
—–
how long ago was it when we complained that AAQ is moving the goalposts in the middle of the game ? ……
.
.
.AAQ is looking down from his ivory tower at those primitive haredim ….
let’s listen in ….
” …. will haredim be able to read population surveys, understand how non-direct democracy works, deal in international affairs ……”
—–
such an insult .
he infers that haredim are some savages from the jungle who cannot read population surveys ….
he infers that crooks overstepping their authority , granted to them by the people , is somehow equal to non direct democracy …..
have got news for AAQ here – it is equal to the following six letter word : P U T S C H
and anyone ready to use his own sechel , without outsourcing it to some mindless professor or bureaucrat , will come to the same conclusion
—-
reb AAQ , it is time to wake up and change your modus operandi
stop relying on others
start thinking for yourself
learn gemarot be’iyun
which will help you to base your thoughts on facts and reality
and check all your facts and figures twice before you start building castles in the sky
.
.YYA> about students of R Gamliel:
> 1. Who says they were in elementary school?
I meant that you need someone who is now in elementary school to start learning science if you want them to lead army research 20 years from now. Same for politics, etc.> 2. Who says those were the leaders, and not the others?
I presume both will be. That is what I see the message of R Gamliel. My naive question is why he did not have students who were learning both, the way modern thinkers trying to do sometimes, like R Soloveitchik. Maybe at that time, when so much memorization was part of learning, there was just no place in one head for both?> 3. The whole point of the Midrash is that they were killed by the Romans, many meforshim say BECAUSE IT WASN’T A GOOD IDEA despite the good intentions.
Stop taking Chazal out of context.this is gemora, not midrash, right? I don’t think I am taking Gemora out of context. I might not have learnt this in depth, so there are relevant meforshim, please quote. I would appreciate of there are different opinions, please quote all of them.
yankel >then it is AAQ who complains that mentioning stasi is ‘immature’
I called for respectful dialog, asking not to use stasi approach, and you responded – yes, do more of that. That is “immature” when done in cyberspace and may be way worse IRL.
YYA, I looked up the numbers of abducted children (I understand this is not the only issue, but the most outrageous one) – out of 500K+ sephardim in general, several commissions talked at most of hundreds, and highest wild estimates talk about 10K. These are big numbers, if true, but they are still just a small part of the community. I agree that this will be a larger proportion for Yemenites.
Your explanation of Sephardi path – re-education, followed by teshuva, followed by stockholm syndrome seems to be biased … I know both sephardim who came to US directly and those who were in Israel, and their hashkafot are very similar to each other. It all various a lot by country and personal caes, of course – but many were “observant” in a very marginal way – they just lived in places that certain things were done; they were relaxed about many halachot because people around them were muslims. I know one such man whose wife was a little more advanced and she had to list all potential ingredients he might encounter in american food to impress him enough to start being products with hashgaha. He was “observant” buut he only knew what his local muslims would put into the pita – flour and water. I presume our ashkenazi ancesstors were in a similar position in 18th century when it became possible to travel away from the shtetlach. This is what R Hirsh was writing about – those who are not ready to confront the world will go OTD.
Also, as long as we described these historical grievances, we need to remember that those zionists actually saved all these sephardim from the wave of brutal regimes in their countries. At the time, some people might thought that zionists were “uprooting” communities, but now we know what was ahead in Iran/Iraq/Syria/Yemen. Without those resettlements efforts, their life would be totally different. I asked a friend whose family is from Aleppo whether he thought about it when Russian air force was bombing the city held by Islamists in support of Baath regime .. he said he did not, they all never looked back and do not even think what would have happened to them …
AAQ first accuses innocents of using a stasi approach
because they ask questions
to make sure that AAQ does not play loose with the facts
to make sure that AAQ does not move goalposts smack in the middle of the game
it was AAQ who labeled those questions ‘stasi like’ – not me ….
it seems like AAQ attempted to use this ‘stasi’ description to escape scrutiny and therefore accountability ….
the obvious rejoinder was that the questioner should continue using what AAQ described [!] as ‘stasi’
whereafter AAQ turns around and accuses people of not being respectful ….
is that another example of AAQ moving goalposts in the middle of the game ?
Am left wondering ….
.
.YYA, yes,
one aspect is that those who involved in relationships with non-Jews need that. So, the charedi government of Israel will need that. Also, we are all using “greek” technology (not just machines and computers, but politics and democracy, all greek words).Note also that prohibition is also based on a historical episode with two brothers fighting for the kingdom ending up with Romans/Pompeo getting control. This was definitely not the moment to admire roman culture.
But there is also ambiguity of our attitude towards greeks. What I remember from the discussion that this contradiction may be explained by different aspect of greek culture, and probably roman also. Rambam, and the whole science, for thousand+ years were following Aristotle, Pythagorean theorem is still true. Adrianus was a friend of R Yehudah … Thanks for reminding of this sugya, I’ll look at it again.
YYA> How did those countries, where Jews had lived for over 2,000 years, become hostile to Jews in the first place? Not that antisemitism didn’t exist before, but there was no urgent need to flee until a very specific point in history…
We touched on that before. In 1950, I might have agreed with you, probably would have said same myself. But look now at last 80 years of Arab world. This was not all zionist fault. They all went through socialist and islamist dictatorships, all non-Muslims either emigrated or worse, everything not agreeing with regimes tortured and killed en masse. This is all sounds abstract to us, but imagine ISIS taking charge of Aleppo Jewish community; Saddam prosecuting Baghdad Jews; Syrian Jews searching opened prisons in Damascus looking for long-gone relatives.
See, as in Europe, arguably questionable actions lead to saving millions of Jews. I don’t know what the theological explanation is, why Hashem used these kelim to save the Jews, but facts are clear.
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