Segula - The Jewish Journey Through History

19/11/2024

Happy Birthday, Sir Moses Montefiore! 🎂🎈🎉 But why do they all look so serious?

The 100th birthday celebrations for Moses Montefiore in November 1884 (18 Heshvan 5645) were just a clever cover for a much more significant event. On this day, exactly 140 years ago, 36 bearded Jewish delegates gathered for the Katowice Conference, organized by Yehuda Leib Pinsker, author of Auto-Emancipation, and Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever, founder of Hovevei Zion (the Society for the Lovers of Zion). Representatives of Hovevei Zion branches from across Europe gathered together to chart a course for Jewish national renewal.

Dozens of such societies had sprouted throughout Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the pogroms of 1881, fostering the idea of a Jewish revival in the Land of Israel. However, in Russia – where most of these groups were based – political and Zionist activity was strictly prohibited under the czar's regime, making communication between members of the different groups almost impossible. To avoid unpleasant consequences for Russian participants, the organizers chose to meet in Katowice, Silesia (southern Poland), and disguised the conference as a birthday celebration for the elderly Montefiore.

This wasn’t the first attempt at uniting these groups. In 1882, Romanian Jews, disillusioned by their lack of civil rights, convened the Focșani Congress, which resolved to promote settlement in the Land of Israel. The Katowice Conference built on this vision, and its resolutions became a driving force behind the First Aliyah and the establishment of early agricultural settlements in the region.

A commemorative plaque at the site of the conference calls it the starting point of the modern State of Israel:
"A gathering of the Hovevei Zion movement was held here, an event recorded in history as the Katowice Conference, marking the beginning of the process that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948."

The photograph is from the archive of Dr. Yosef Hazanovich, a Hovevei Zion representative from Bialystok who was also among the founders of the National Library of Israel.
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17/11/2024

Since the onset of modernity, there have only been a few short texts that can be said to have changed the world. The Communist Manifesto was one. But the Zionists have another.

Russian-Jewish doctor Yehuda Leib (Leon) Pinsker published a modest pamphlet in German titled Auto-Emancipation – 142 years ago! Finally reaching its intended audience in Russian translation in Heshvan 5643, October 1882, it was the author’s response to the horrific pogroms that had ravaged Jewish communities in Russia that year.

Pinsker, a highly educated Jew from Odessa, initially believed that anti-Semitism could be overcome through emancipation - granting Jews equal rights and encouraging their integration into society, as had been done in Germany and France. The violent uprisings in Russia shattered this illusion, however.

“The Jews,” he wrote, “comprise a distinctive element among the nations under which they dwell, and as such can neither assimilate nor be readily digested by any nation.”

Pinsker realized that salvation for the Jews could not come from external forces but must arise from within. What they needed was not emancipation, but auto-emancipation! He proposed that Jews establish a national homeland of their own, with a Jewish assembly deciding its location - whether in the Land of Israel, the United States, or elsewhere. As the pamphlet’s guiding principle, Pinsker quoted Hillel the Elder from the Mishnaic text Ethics of the Fathers: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

Originally published in German to avoid the Russian censor, Pinsker’s pamphlet met with harsh criticism in Western Europe: Why should Jews isolate themselves in a new ghetto? Wouldn’t this only undermine their hard-won progress toward assimilation? Pinsker was seen as jeopardizing the gains of emancipation.

In Eastern Europe, however, Pinsker’s ideas met with overwhelming enthusiasm, resonating deeply with members of the budding Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement. Widely circulated in Russian translation, Auto-Emancipation earned Pinsker not only adulation, but eventually chairmanship of the Hovevei Zion movement.

The pamphlet ended by paraphrasing another verse from Ethics of the Fathers, coupled with a prophetic warning:
Let “Now or never” be our watchword. Woe to our descendants, woe to the memory of our Jewish contemporaries, if we let this moment of opportunity pass by!

Pinsker passed away in 1891, six years before the First Zionist Congress, never witnessing how his program of action became a path trodden by Herzl and others to real achievement. In 1934, his remains were brought to the Land of Israel and laid to rest on Mount Scopus.
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12/11/2024

“No son can pass by his mother’s grave without stopping to pay his respects.” This pilgrim’s note in the visitors’ book at Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem was signed: Hayim Nahman Bialik.

Today, the 11th of Cheshvan, is traditionally observed as the anniversary of Rachel the Matriarch’s passing. The ongoing connection between Rachel’s Tomb and her exiled children epitomizes the bond between the people of Israel and the land of their forefathers.

In 1841, Sir Moses Montefiore obtained a special Ottoman permit to carry out renovations at the tomb. He had iron gates installed which could be locked with a key, entrusted to four Jewish families tasked with safeguarding the site. This marked the first official recognition of Jewish ownership of Rachel’s Tomb.

As battles raged in the Holy Land during World War I, the tomb was included in a list of holy sites British soldiers were instructed to respect and protect as much as possible from damage as a result of the conflict. Once their conquest was completed however, the British restricted access to the tomb.

For almost thirty years, the Ashkenazi caretaker of the site was Shlomo Eliyahu Freiman. In addition to regular maintenance, Freiman was responsible for opening the tomb for High Holy Day prayers. After the 1929 riots, he expanded these opening hours to include Rosh Chodesh (the first of each month) and later nearly every day of the year. On especially busy days, like the 11th of Marheshvan, additional buses were arranged by a Jewish bus company to bring pilgrims back and forth.

Freiman meticulously documented the history of the tomb in a series of visitors’ books known as the “Rachel’s Tomb Journals.” They detailed renovations and repairs, visitor numbers, and prominent guests, as well as the signatures of thousands of pilgrims, each with the date. Many added their prayers and requests next to their names, creating an emotional and spiritual record of the state of the Mandate Palestine traditional Jewish community.

The Shoah features prominently in the journal: prayers for the ascent of the souls of murdered relatives, and survivors who signed not only their names but the names of the obliterated communities they’d come from. On Rosh Chodesh Nisan in 1943, as horrifying reports emerged regarding the fate of Europe’s Jewish communities, Freiman wrote of thousands converging on the tomb, so that overcrowding blocked the entrance for hours.

On the day following Simhat Torah in 1946, a large memorial oil lamp was installed in honor of Holocaust victims. The initiative of Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, it helped consolidate the status of Rachel’s Tomb as a national holy site. Chief Rabbi Herzog also lit the first flame in the lamp.

In March 1947, as Arab-Jewish tensions escalated, Freiman recorded his own prayer for the salvation of Jerusalem in the journal. The British army eventually denied Jews entry to Bethlehem and to the tomb to avoid friction with the town’s Arab population, and Freiman had to leave the site before the UN’s partition resolution that November. From that moment on, Rachel’s Tomb became a distant aspiration. In the 1950s and 1960s, its distinctive domed image could be found in many Jewish homes on postcards and oil paintings or sculpted in bronze.

Twenty years later, with the conclusion of the Six-Day War, crowds flocked to visit the newly liberated matriarch’s tomb in joyous celebration. Shmulik Rosen’s poem, written soon after the war, echoes the biblical verses from Jeremiah in which God reassured Rachel that her children would some day return home from exile. In Rosen’s version, the Jewish soldiers promise Rachel:

“Restrain your voice, Rachel, restrain your voice from tears
We’re all here, Rachel, with packs upon our shoulders
We’ll leave no more, Rachel, and you will go no more
We’ll leave no more, Rachel, the fields of Bethlehem.
Look, Rachel, look,
Look, Master of the World
Look, Rachel, look,
They’ve come back to their borders.”

Photo: The Tamir family visiting Rachel’s Tomb after the Six-Day War, July 1967. (From the Yosef Tamir Photograph Collection, PikiWiki)
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10/11/2024

Kristallnacht – The Day After

The sun rose as usual on November 10, 1938. Horrifying reports of the night’s violence in Germany flooded the world’s newspapers: the looting, burning and destruction, and the brutality that claimed hundreds of lives sparked shock and intense condemnation from a variety of national leaders.

But in Germany – not a voice was raised in protest. There was no official condemnation of the rioting, no criticism of the raging mobs. Instead, the Third Reich blamed the Jews. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels declared that the first shot had been fired in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-Jewish refugee who assassinated German diplomat Ernst vom Rath at the German embassy in revenge for his family’s deportation to Poland: “Thus, in Paris, Jewry shot at the German people.”

As if the Jewish community hadn’t suffered enough on that dark night, the government set forth further punishment. Jews would bear the full costs of repairing their own businesses. The Reich would confiscate any payments received from German insurance companies, and a heavy indemnity payment to the German Reich would be imposed on every Jewish citizen.

Meanwhile, Mariane Vogel, who had emigrated from Germany when Hi**er rose to power, was living quietly in Bnei Brak. Three months after Kristallnacht, in February 1939, she received an official letter from the German government at her address in Palestine, demanding 8,600 marks for her “share” of the damages to the synagogue in her hometown.

Who would have thought that in Amsterdam in 2024, eighty-six years to the week after Kristallnacht, another premeditated pogrom would be blamed on the Jews – this time Israeli football fans being the focus?

Photos: Synagogues in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden set alight on Kristallnacht, Wikipedia.
Letter courtesy of the Library and Information Division, Bar-Ilan University.
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10/11/2024

Our 8-session lecture series on Lessons of 1948 starts tomorrow - on Zoom and live in Jerusalem. You can still register for this fascinating course: https://segula.vp4.me/Segula-Course

Join us for a special 8-session course: Lessons of 1948
Option to join us live in Jerusalem or via Zoom (recordings available).

The lectures will take place on Mondays, starting Nov. 11, at 6pm Israel time, 11am Eastern time.
Lecturer: Sara Jo Ben Zvi, editor of Segula Jewish Magazine

Cost: 380 NIS
Cost per couple (in person): 700 NIS

Register here: https://segula.vp4.me/Segula-Course

07/11/2024

Notice:
In light of the bloodshed endured,
After all requirements for religious observance have been assured,
The central office of Agudat Israel calls upon all young men of our nation from within the various circles of the ultra-Orthodox community,
Aged 17 to 25,
To present themselves for registration at the national draft office.
Each and every one of us is to stand at his post to defend life and property.
“Let us be strong and brave for our people and for the cities of our God,
And may God do that which is good in His sight."

This message was posted in Jerusalem in 1948... Could such a call ever be heard in our day?
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Seventy-seven years ago this week, the Council of Torah Sages convened and issued a groundbreaking resolution: not to oppose the establishment of a Jewish state. Additionally, the council decided to send representatives to the Jewish Agency’s national security committee, purely for safety and security purposes.

The council convened in Tel Aviv on November 4, 1947 (21st of Cheshvan 5708), about three weeks before the UN vote on partition of Mandate Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.

The decision marked a shift in Agudat Israel’s policy, which had previously boycotted the Zionist movement and opposed any cooperation with its institutions in the Land of Israel. However, as it became clear that a Jewish state would indeed be established, the ultra-Orthodox community realized they’d be better off cooperating with it, at least giving them the chance to help shape the new state’s characteristics.

When Israel was attacked in 1948 and the War of Independence broke out, Agudat Israel rabbis set three conditions for ultra-Orthodox enlistment in the army: (1) exemption from enlistment for women and yeshiva students; (2) no training on the Sabbath and festivals; and (3) separate units for religious soldiers where all religious boundaries were meticulously maintained.

The enlistment committee accepted these conditions, and Agudat Israel soon began posting notices on the streets and in the press calling for registration at enlistment stations in preparation for recruitment. Members of Agudat Israel and Poalei Agudat Israel quickly responded, lining up for medical examinations, and many were indeed enlisted.

While the call for enlistment was not directed at yeshiva students, negotiations continued regarding their enlistment terms in parallel with discussions about exemptions for university students. As the war continued, an agreement was reached on the percentage of yeshiva students required for enlistment, and a special battalion – the Tuvia Battalion – was established for them.

Agudat Israel’s newspapers carried descriptions of what went on in the religious training camps and army units. The papers praised and encouraged those who’d enlisted, adding: “Our aim is not just to take care of Jewish dietary issues, but a much higher purpose: to return to the ancient and original form of warfare we once practiced against our enemies. These young men’s bravery and actions will sanctify the name of Heaven.” (“Hayoman,” 19 Adar I 5708/February 29, 1948)

Read about the ultra-Orthodox community’s involvement in the War of Independence here: https://www.calameo.com/read/00466378262e0ddf56f36

Photo: Agudat Israel newspaper clipping showing an ultra-Orthodox soldier in uniform
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30/10/2024

Join us for a special 8-session course: Lessons of 1948
Option to join us live in Jerusalem or via Zoom (recordings available).

The lectures will take place on Mondays, starting Nov. 11, at 6pm Israel time, 11am Eastern time.
Lecturer: Sara Jo Ben Zvi, editor of Segula Jewish Magazine

Cost: 380 NIS
Cost per couple (in person): 700 NIS

Register here: https://segula.vp4.me/Segula-Course

27/10/2024

Today, 119 years ago, the world’s first Hebrew high school opened its doors.

The school year began straight after the holidays, on the 25th of Tishrei 5666, October 25, 1905. There was as yet no school building, so the few students gathered in the home of Dr. Yehuda Leib and Fania Metman Cohen in Jaffa, on a street still called Hebrew High School Street.

Four years later, the institution moved to an impressive building on Herzl Street in Tel Aviv, known as Herzliya Gymnasium in honor of Theodor Herzl. The building was designed by architect Yosef Berski in collaboration with Bezalel Academy director, Boris Schatz.

The architecture was a gem, reflecting a style only then emerging in Tel Aviv, later known as the “Eretz-Israel Style.” This eclectic school drew on local building traditions for its distinctly Middle Eastern character, combining classical, Moorish (Islamic), and even French Art Deco elements.

Eclecticism dominated Tel Aviv’s architecture in the early 20th century, embodying the idea that Zionism was a cultural synthesis of East and West. But by the early 1930s, the architectural scene had shifted. The Fifth Aliyah brought German-Jewish architects, many of whom had studied or taught at the Bauhaus School of Architecture and Design in Germany or other European institutions. Their influence quickly transformed Tel Aviv’s architectural landscape, introducing the International Style, known as Bauhaus, which stripped away historical references. Tel Aviv became a “White City,” featuring clean lines and a cosmopolitan feel, leaning away from nostalgia and tradition.

Fifty years after it was built, in 1959, the historic Herzliya High School building was demolished to make way for the Shalom Meir Tower. The demolition sparked outrage among alumni, architects, and cultural figures. In response to the outcry, the Council for the Preservation of Heritage Sites in Israel was established, choosing the gymnasium’s iconic structure as its emblem.

Today, Herzliya High School occupies a new, modern building in a different location. In 2006, a cast-iron gate depicting the facade of the original historic building was installed at its entrance.

Above: The original Herzliya High School building
Below: The current building with the iron replica of the original facade. Photo: Avishai Teicher
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23/10/2024

From Sidon shall the Torah come…
The story of the last Torah scroll from Sidon, discovered by IDF soldiers during the First Lebanon War, in the summer of 1982. 👇

Soldiers from Battalion 7056, who’d been called up for reserve duty early on in the war, were the ones who captured the cities of Tyre and Sidon, paving the way for the IDF to reach Beirut. While Tyre fell with little resistance, Sidon proved more challenging, with intense battles against terrorist cells stationed around the city. As paratroopers entered Sidon’s main square, heavy fire was directed at them from the upper floors of residential buildings. Sergeant Danny Brenner, aged 31, was tragically killed in the crossfire.

When the fighting subsided, on Friday, June 11, 1982, armored personnel carriers rolled through the streets of Sidon, calling for men to come forward. Suddenly, a man wearing a beret ran towards one of the vehicles, shouting in English, "Don’t shoot! I’m Jewish!"

A Jew? In Sidon? Could anyone from the ancient Jewish community, who had fled during Lebanon’s civil war, possibly still be there? Suspicious that the man might be a terrorist, the soldiers were about to open fire. But the man came up to the vehicle and showed his ID card, proving he was indeed Yitzhak Halevi, a Jew.

Yitzhak Halevi explained that as the caretaker of Sidon’s synagogue he’d felt an obligation to stay behind with his family. He led the soldiers to the synagogue, hidden deep in the alleyways of the old city casbah, the market. Once there, he showed them the community’s last Torah scroll, which he’d kept safely hidden. Halevi asked the soldiers to find it a new home in Israel.

Overwhelmed with emotion, the soldiers wrapped the Torah in a tallit and brought it to the battalion’s command post. "Even I, the great non-believer, am deeply moved," wrote Deputy Commander Rafi Gil in his journal.

That very Shabbat, the Torah was used by the soldiers in an improvised synagogue, set up between two tractors under a camouflage net.

The Torah was later brought to Israel, where experts confirmed it was over 100 years old, as indicated by an inscription on its crown citing the year 1868 (5628). The Torah from Sidon was placed in the synagogue of Bnei Darom and dedicated in memory of Danny Brenner, who fell in the battle for Sidon.
May his memory be blessed.

Right: The Torah scroll; photo by Ze’ev Ehrlich
Above: The dedication on the crown; photo by Miri Tsachie.
Below: Paratroopers carrying the scroll through Sidon's old city; photo courtesy of Avi Aviel

For the full story>> https://segulamag.com/en/articles/torah-from-sidon/
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20/10/2024

End of summer, nearly two thousand years ago. Survivors of the Great Revolt in Judea flee north, climbing wearily up the steep ravines, seeking refuge in Gamla, the last stronghold in the region. They look up, seeing eagles circling overhead. Within a few weeks, the area would be overrun by Roman eagles painted on the banners of the dreaded legions.

Josephus Flavius vividly describes the heroic battle staged by Gamla’s defenders after the Romans broke into the town. They pushed back Vespasian’s seemingly invincible legions down onto the jumble of houses packing the densely built urban slopes. There, the buildings collapsed on the soldiers: “Many were buried under the ruins, others were trapped by their limbs as they tried to escape, but most suffocated in the rising clouds of dust. Seeing these events as a sign of divine help, the people of Gamla disregarded their own casualties and continued to attack, driving their enemies to the rooftops.”

A careful reading of Josephus’ text reveals that the death traps which led to the Roman defeat were, in fact, sukkot, the palm-branch roofed shelters built in honor of the festival – despite the ongoing Roman siege – by Gamla’s residents.

Vespasian himself barely escaped the deadly battle. Enraged, his soldiers launched a second assault on Gamla, and this time they overcame the city’s defenders. Gamla fell on the 23rd of Tishrei, the day after the Sukkot holiday.

To read Hughie Oman’s article “Romans of the Roof,” click here >> https://segulamag.com/en/articles/romans-roofs-gamla/

Illustration by Menachem Halberstadt
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16/10/2024

“Commander, we have a problem,” the soldiers told the brigade commander who had come to inspect their positions. “Sukkot begins tomorrow night and we need the Four Species."

The commander was surprised. This was all his soldiers had to worry about in the middle of a war? But he dealt with their request. His order was transmitted by radio: We need x pieces of equipment, y number of shells, and, finally, the Four Species. The soldiers were delighted to find the lulav, etrog, hadassim and aravot – the palm branch, citron, myrtle and willow twigs among all the supplies and ammunition, ready for them to hold and wave during prayer services snatched between guard duty and enemy engagements during the holiday.

One of the brigade commanders from the Yom Kippur War shared this story with Rabbi Amital, dean of Har Etzion Yeshiva, who made it one of his standard anecdotes.

Eighteen hundred years earlier, a similar request was made by Jewish soldiers in the Land of Israel during their defiant, second rebellion against the Roman conquerors. An intriguing document was found among others discovered in the Cave of Letters in Nahal Hever near the Dead Sea. Shimon Bar Kosiba – better known as Bar Kokhba – the leader of the rebellion, sent an order by letter to his fighters stationed in Kiryat Aravaya, which Yigael Yadin identified as El-Arub near Hebron. He sent them etrogim and lulavim and requested myrtle branches and willows. This is the text of the letter:
“To Yehuda Bar Menasheh at Kiryat Aravaya. I have sent you two donkeys so that you can send them with two men to Yehonatan Ben Ba’aya and to Masbala to be loaded up with lulavim and etrogim for your camp. And you must send others from among your men to bring you myrtles and willows, which you should prepare and send on [to me] because the army is large. Be well.”

Above: an improvised Sukkah on an army jeep in Sinai during the Yom Kippur War. Photo: Shlomo Arad, Israel National Photo Collection.
Below: Bar Kokhba’s letter to Kiryat Aravaya.

🍋🌿🌴🍃Wishing a joyful Sukkot harvest festival to all Israel and to all our soldiers, wherever they may be 💚
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15/10/2024

We are excited to update that due to popular demand, we will be offering this 8-session course both in person in Jerusalem and via Zoom: Lessons of 1948 – with Sara Jo Ben Zvi, editor of Segula Magazine.

The lectures will take place on Mondays, starting Nov. 4, at 6pm Israel time, 11am Eastern time.
Cost: 380 NIS pp
Price per couple: 700 NIS (in person)

Register here: https://segula.vp4.me/Segula-Course

10/10/2024

This year, the shofar blasts have been intertwined with the wail of sirens. The soul-searching of the High Holy Days is inseparable from reflections on the war that’s been thrust upon us. And yet we’re still in the midst of the struggle – too early to fully reflect on a war whose conclusion we don’t yet know.

Ever since Yom Kippur in 1973, the connection between war and Yom Kippur has been a given in Israel.

Some years ago, Segula Magazine profiled three Yom Kippur War veterans and their soul-searching in the wake of that war.

The first was in the armored corps. His tank took a direct hit, and he alone survived, burnt from head to toe. In the long months he lay in a hospital bed, silent and wounded, he came to a new understanding of suffering and faith, one that later came to resonate deeply within the souls of many young people.

The second was a soldier from the Nahal pioneer infantry unit. Atop newly-captured Mount Hermon, he discovered his best friend had been killed. The resulting religious and political questions gnawed at him to his dying day. Those doubts led him to break the mold of traditional religious attitudes and spearhead a religious peace movement.

The third was a paratrooper officer. Crawling under fire to evacuate the wounded during fierce fighting on the Sinai Peninsula, recalling his father’s heroism in Israel’s War of Independence, he emerged somehow with his belief in his fellow man not just intact, but strengthened.

Rabbi Shagar, Rabbi Menachem Froman, Yehuda Duvdevani.

Three men who faced the rupture and death of the Yom Kippur War, each seeking his own spiritual answer. Three paths to faith that grew out of the flames and the ruins. Three reflections in the shadow of war.

In those days, and perhaps even now...

To read the article “Faith Under Fire” by Adam Zachi, click here >> https://segulamag.com/en/articles/faith-under-fire/

May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life.
Photo: IDF Archive
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06/10/2024

Today, Yeshayahu (Shaike) Gavish was laid to rest, having passed away during Rosh Hashana at the age of 99. Gavish was a commander in the Palmach, the pre-state strike force of the Hagana Defense militia, and participated in numerous battles during Israel’s War of Independence. He served as the Southern Command chief and led the conquest of the Sinai Peninsula during the Six-Day War. In the Yom Kippur War, he was called up from the reserves to command the southern Sinai region, known as Mahoz Shlomo.

Today, October 6th, marks the 51st anniversary of the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. The following is an excerpt from a report Shaike Gavish wrote summarizing the war, issued by Mahoz Shlomo (from the IDF Archives):
“I must warn you against the belief that information and situational assessments come only from above. Were we to become a purely technical army, that would be the worst thing that could happen. Analysis, situational assessment, and the use of all available information to draw conclusions must occur at every level. We cannot leave it to the General Staff to evaluate and hand on its assumptions. If we don’t learn from what has happened – that initiative and assessment need to be going on at all levels, and that the state of alert must be accompanied by orders, with clear instructions – we’ll find ourselves once again in the same situation; even if we’re not caught by surprise, we’ll be caught unprepared.”

“Today the IDF needs significant change, from top to bottom. Every unit needs to review itself, its combat doctrines, its weapons and their integration, because in the next war we’ll be facing an even more difficult situation. The Egyptians are already talking about two million soldiers, as opposed to the million they had this time, and we won’t be able to double our army in numbers. So, the solution is to double in quality; meaning, to be more prepared for such a war, with better company commanders, better tactics, better strategy, and more efficient execution.”

May his memory be a blessing.

Image: Gavish in 1967, photo by David Rubinger, Israel National Photo Collection
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30/09/2024

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