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Old Yishuv
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- For the entire Jewish Yishuv, see Yishuv
The Old Yishuv ( - Hayishuv hayashan) refers to the Jewish community that lived in Eretz Yisrael, from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE to the First Aliyah in 1881, prior to the onset of Zionist immigration.
The Old Yishuv dwelled mainly in the Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron. Smaller communities also existed in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki'in, Acre, Shechem, Shfaram and until 1779, in Gaza. Petah Tikva, although established in 1878 by the Old Yishuv, nevertheless was also supported by the arriving Zionists.
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Encyclopedia
- For the entire Jewish Yishuv, see Yishuv
The Old Yishuv ( - Hayishuv hayashan) refers to the Jewish community that lived in Eretz Yisrael, from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE to the First Aliyah in 1881, prior to the onset of Zionist immigration.
The Old Yishuv dwelled mainly in the Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron. Smaller communities also existed in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki'in, Acre, Shechem, Shfaram and until 1779, in Gaza. Petah Tikva, although established in 1878 by the Old Yishuv, nevertheless was also supported by the arriving Zionists. Rishon LeZion, the first settlement founded by the Hovevei Zion in 1882, could be considered the true beginning of the New Yishuv.
History
Maimonides traveled from Spain to Morocco and Egypt, and lived briefly in Eretz Yisrael (after 1178), then returned and settled in Egypt.
The aliyah of a group of 300 Jews headed by the Tosafists from England and France in 1211 struggled very hard upon arrival in Eretz Yisrael, as they had no financial support and no prospect of making a living. The vast majority of the settlers were wiped out by the Crusaders who arrived in 1219, and the few survivors were allowed to live only in Acre. Their descendants blended with the original Jewish residents, called Mustarabim or Maghrebim, but more precisely Mashriqes (Murishkes).
In 1260 Rabbi Yechiel of Paris arrived in Eretz Yisrael along with his son and a large group of followers, settling in Acre. There he established the Talmudic academy Midrash haGadol d'Paris. He is believed to have died there between 1265 and 1268, and is buried near Haifa, at Mount Carmel.
Nahmanides arrived in 1267 and settled in Acre. In 1488, when Rabbi Ovadiya from Bertinoro arrived in the Holy Land and sent back letters regularly to his father in Italy, many in the diaspora came to regard living in Eretz Yisrael as feasible.
Exile from Spain
In 1492 and again in 1498, when the Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal respectively, some took it as a call from heaven to return to their homeland, Eretz Yisrael. Don Joseph Nasi succeeded in resettling Tiberias and Safed in 1561 with Sephardic Jews, many of them former marranos. By the early 16th century, Safed had become a center of Kabbalah, inhabited by important rabbis and scholars. Among them were Rabbi Yakov bi Rav, Rabbi Moshe Cordevero, Rabbi Yosef Karo, and the Arizal. At this time there was a small community in Jerusalem headed by Rabbi Levi ibn Haviv also known as the Mahralbach. Rabbi Yeshaye Horowitz, the Shelah Hakadosh, arrived in 1620.
Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid
In 1700, a group of over 1,500 Ashkenazi Jews set out for Eretz Yisrael to settle in Jerusalem. At that time, the Jewish population of the Old City was primarily Sephardi: 200 Ashkenazi Jews versus a Sephardi community of 1,000. These Ashkenazi new immigrants heeded the call of Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid, a Maggid of Shedlitz, Poland who went from town to town advocating a return to Eretz Yisrael to redeem its soil.
Almost a third of the group died of hardship and illness during the long journey. Upon their arrival in the Holy Land, they immediately went to Jerusalem. Within days, their leader, Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid, died. They borrowed money from local Arabs for the construction of a synagogue but soon ran out of funds and borrowed more money at very high rates of interest. In 1720, when they were unable to repay their debts, Arab creditors broke into the synagogue, set it on fire, and destroyed their homes. The Jews fled the city and over the next century, any Jew dressed in Ashkenazi garb was a target of attack. Some of the Ashkenazi Jews who remained began to dress like Sephardi Jews. One known example is Rabbi Abraham Gershon of Kitov.
Hasidim and Perushim
In the 18th century, groups of Hasidim and Perushim settled in Eretz Yisrael.
In 1764 Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka, a disciple and mechutan of the Baal Shem Tov settled in Tiberias. According to "Aliyos to Eretz Yisrael," he was already in Eretz Yisrael in 1750.
In 1777, the Hasidic leaders Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and Rabbi Avraham of Kaliski, disciples of the Maggid of Mezeritch settled there. Misnagdim began arriving in 1780. Most of them settled in Safed or Tiberias, but a few established an Ashkenazi kehilla in Jerusalem, rebuilding the ruins of the Hurvat Yehudah He-Hasid (the destroyed synagogue of Judah He-Hasid).
Disciples of the Chasam Sofer
Starting in 1830, about twenty disciples of the Chasam Sofer settled in Eretz Yisrael; almost all of them in Jerusalem.
The Earthquake in Safed
Finally, the earthquake of 1836 destroyed Safed, killed thousands of its residents, and contributed to the reconstitution of Jerusalem as the main center of the Yishuv haYashan.
Finances
Kollel
Many of the settlers making aliyah were elderly, who arrived with their life's savings. However this was not the case with all, and even those who brought some money with them did not imagine how much they would need. This was especially so when an Arabic Pasha would get a tip about some money, and would order the individual's arrest, demanding the highest possible bribe to set him free.
In light of this it became important for the settlers to organize, and they founded a central support organization, called a kollel. The plan was that every place of origin would collect money through Pushka fundraising and similar means, to support their community members in the Holy Land.
Many of those arriving were noted Torah scholars whose places of origin felt honored to be represented by in Eretz Yisroel, and accordingly sent them Maamodos (stipends) on a regular basis.
They organized Kollelim like the Galicien, Hungarian, Hod (stands for Holland and Deutschland), Horodno, Warsaw and others. They collected money in organized fashion from entire countries and gave a stipend (Halukka) for its members. Those under the protection of the Austrian consulate were especially fortunate, as the consulate was instructed from Vienna to be helpful to Austro-Hungarian citizens living in the Holy land. They became even more helpful after Kaiser Franz Joseph visited the Holy Land in 1869 and the Yishuv haYashan gave him a royal reception.
Etrog export
The export of Etrog cultivated in Eretz Yisroel was also considered as a source of income for the Yishuv haYashan, and this predated the idea of the Hovevei Zion colonization, which intended that the etrogim should be cultivated by the Jewish settlers themselves. Prior to that the Etrogim were cultivated exclusively by Arab peasants and then merchandized by the Jews.
According to Jacob Saphir, the Etrog business was monopolized by the Sephardic Kollel even before 1835. They had contracted with the Arabic growers of Um el-Faum for their entire progeny of Balady citron. In the 1840s they were also the instrumental in the introduction of the Greek citron which was already cultivated in Jewish owned farms. In the 1870s the Sephardim switched to the Greek variety, and the Ashkenazi Salant partners took over the Balady business. After a little while, controversy erupted regarding its Kashrut status.
Rabbi Chaim Elozor Wax was very instrumental in making the Israeli-grown etrogim saleable in Ashkenazi Europe. He planted thousands of trees in a donated orchard near Tiberias, and turned the proceeds over to the Warsaw Kolel he was heading.
Hovevei Zion
The initial intentions of the Hovevei Zion were similar to those of the Yishuv haYashan, namely returning to Zion and living in holiness in the Holy Land. The Hovevei Zion had many great rabbis as members. It emphasized buying up large amounts of land from the Turkish government or from the local inhabitants. Eventually, after the First Zionist Congress in 1897, many Hovevei Zion members joined the Zionist movement in order to establish a Jewish state.
The initiator and leader of the Hovevei Zion was Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Kalischer of Thorn who published his views and love to Zion in his work Drishat Zion. This work also included his intention to renew the ritual of korbanoth at the ruins of the Holy Temple even before the Temple is rebuilt, together with some other details which turned out to be very controversial. Among his opponents were the Ashkenazic Yishuv haYashan rabbis headed by Rabbi Meir Aurbach, known as the Imre Bina. On the other hand he was supported by his colleague Rabbi Eliyah Gutmacher of Greiditz, known as the Greiditzer Tzadik. Finally this support ceased due to the foundation of Mikveh Israel - a secular-based agricultural school that involved violating the Halakha and weakening Torah observance in the Holy Land. In the end, the remnants of this group joined the Zionist movement of Theodor Herzl.
See also
External links
- , .
- [https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/4590/ The Contribution of the Old Yishuv to the Revival of the Hebrew Language]
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