Rothschild to teach trades and encourage set-tlement of the land, the Old Yishuvremained, for the most part, a paralyzed,dependent community, incapable of sustain-ing itself.

Toward the end of the 19th century,small groups of rebels, mostly traditionalistsliving in Jerusalem, decided to break out ofthe stifling confines of the halukah systemand build a society based on its own labor.At the same time, waves of antisemitismwere breaking throughout Europe, and tensof thousands of Jews took flight, immigrat-ing to the United States, Great Britain, andelsewhere; others took part in the revolu-tionary movements in their native coun-tries. A much smaller group of EuropeanJews, preferring to reaffirm their Jewishidentity in a secular and nationalist form,found themselves attracted to the emergingZionist study circles and clubs. Members ofthese groups, known as Hovevei Zion,“Lovers of Zion, “believed” that there is nosalvation for the people of Israel unless theyestablish a government of their own in theLand of Israel.”

The Jewish population in Eretz Yisrael,numbering a scant 17,000 by the mid-19thcentury and 24,000 by 1882, had morethan doubled by the turn of the century.Fully 25,000 Jews entered Palestine duringthe 1880s and 1890s. The “First aliyah,” asthis wave of immigration later becameknown, changed the cultural and religiouslandscape of the country, thus ending aperiod of impending atrophy and pavingthe way for a Jewish national renaissance.These settlers, mostly arriving from Russiaand Poland, were young, educated, and ide-alistic. Doctors and philosophers, teachersand tradesmen, they arrived in thePromised Land to begin their lives anew.

To further the cultural and national inter-ests of the Yishuv, there was a desire amongmany of these enlightened Jewish men toorganize under one organization. Thatorganization was B’nai B’rith. In the springof 1888, nearly 10 years before TheodorHerzl convened the first Zionist Congress

The story of B’nai B’rith in EretzYisrael (the Land of Israel) andthe rise of Jewish nationalism are

one and the same. B’nai B’rith was firstestablished in Jerusalem in 1888. It was aperiod ripe for change. Stagnation, vulnera-bility, poverty—it was these dismal condi-tions that led a small, idealistic group ofyoung men to establish the first B’nai B’rithlodge in Eretz Yisrael. A pioneering move-ment, B’nai B’rith promoted the revival ofHebrew as the living vernacular of the grow-ing Jewish community, bridged gaps betweenthe Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities,aided immigrants and impoverished Jews,encouraged settlement of the land, andfought the powerful influence of the manyChristian missionary movements inPalestine. Laying foundations for the cultur-al, economic, and social rebirth of the Jewishnation, B’nai B’rith, in a very real sense, setthe stage upon which the Jewish state was toevolve.

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THE EARLY YEARS

The rebirth of a Jewish nation begantoward the end of the 19th century almostsimultaneously in Palestine and in EasternEurope. Ruled by the incompetent, corrupt,and faltering Ottoman regime inConstantinople, the Jews living in EretzYisrael at the time, who were known as the“Old Yishuv,” were mostly devoutly religiousand heavily dependent upon Halukah funds,charitable support sent by co-religionistsabroad. Initially intended to support Talmudscholars—guardians of all that is sacred in theHoly Land—and the needy, there wasmounting criticism that halukah distributionwas dishonest, often distributed to those whowere neither engaged in study nor poor.Despite attempts during the 19th century bySir Moses Montefiore and Baron Edmond de

4 B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant

B’nai B’rith and Israel:The Unbroken Covenant

Shelly Kleiman

Wilhelm Ze’ev Hertzberg

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant 5

in Basle, “a quorum of ten men who envi-sioned the redemption from the depths andfrom the neglect”—as described by JesaiasPress, an early member—established B’naiB’rith’s first lodge in Palestine, Lodge no.379, named simply “Yerushalayim.” Thefounders—among them Wilhelm Ze’evHertzberg, a German-born philosopher,author, and principal of the first orphanagethat offered secular education; Eliezer BenYehuda, “the father of modem Hebrew”;David Yellin, Hebraist, founder of theHebrew Teachers Seminary, and communityrepresentative; Ephraim Cohen, local repre-sentative of the “Ezra” educational fund;Avraham Moshe Luncz, founder and firstdirector of the School for the Blind andleading geographer of Eretz Yisrael; YosefMejohas, President of the Council ofJerusalem Jews and a scion of the Sephardicommunity—and those who joined B’naiB’rith shortly afterwards—includingShimon Rokach, head of the Ashkenazicommunity in Jaffa and a member of theYishuv’s political council; Yehiel MichaelPines, secretary general of the Hovevei Zionexecutive; and Meir Dizengoff, one of thefounders of Tel Aviv and its first mayor—were among the political and cultural lead-ers of the developing Yishuv. ZigmundSemmel, a leader of B’nai B’rith inGermany, planted the idea of establishing aB’nai Brith lodge with Hertzberg during avisit to Jerusalem in 1887 after attendingthe inauguration of the Ben Maimon Lodgein Cairo. Oskar Strauss, a long-servingAmerican consul in Constantinople, whowas on a visit to Jerusalem in 1888, provid-ed the immediate catalyst.

The creation of the Jerusalem Lodge wasnot B’nai B’rith’s first connection with theHoly Land. In 1865 a severe outbreak ofcholera had struck all of Palestine. The dis-ease seems to have spread from Egypt toBeirut and Izmir, then to Jaffa and otherparts of Palestine, including Jerusalem,Hebron, and Nablus. The Board ofDeputies of British Jews appealed to B’naiB’rith for assistance, and the organization’sfirst short-term overseas philanthropic proj-ect resulted in raising $4,522 in response to

David Yellin-1920

Yehiel Michael Pines

Presidents of Jerusalem Lodge, David Yellin (center) - 1930s.

6 B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant

this request.When B’nai B’rith was founded in 1843

by 12 German-Jewish immigrants atSinsheimer’s Cafe in New York City, itsfounders sought to forge an organizationthat would attract the entire spectrum ofAmerican Jewry and prevent this minoritypopulation from splintering into discon-nected fragments. The situation in EretzYisrael was entirely different. There was nofear of assimilation, no need for ethnic soli-darity. What was needed was a way to rec-oncile the sometimes fragile, often poorrelations between Ashkenazi and Sephardi,old-timers and new settlers, religious andsecular. At the lodge’s first meeting,Hertzberg, who was elected the body’s firstpresident, spoke of uniting the Jews in Israelunder the B’nai B’rith mantle. Uniting thepeople to improve the state of the Yishuv,while acting as a bridge between EretzYisrael and B’nai B’rith lodges throughoutthe world, became the young lodge’s raisond’etre.

In 1889 the Jerusalem Lodge receivedformal recognition from the B’nai B’rithOrder in New York, which called upon it“to establish other lodges in the HolyLand.” Under the aegis of the JerusalemLodge, the Sha’ar Zion Lodge was estab-lished in Jaffa in 1890, to be followed bythe Galilee Lodge in Safed in 1891 and theAdolf Kraus Lodge in Zichron Ya’acovin 1911.

THE REVIVAL OF HEBREW

Ben-Yehuda, who became the JerusalemLodge’s first secretary, called it “a center ofvisions.” And, indeed, it fast became theunofficial cultural center of the new Yishuv.Believing that a Jewish national renaissancewas conceivable only if it was consciouslyrooted in the Hebrew language and culture,the Jerusalem Lodge became the first publicbody in Palestine in which Hebrew was theofficial language. Its minutes were writtenin Hebrew and it was declared the preferredspoken tongue, although “everyone had theright to speak in the language of hischoice.”

B’nai B’rith’s impact on the revival ofHebrew went well beyond lodge meetings.In 1889 a number of young lodge members

Letter from Executive Committee of B’nai B’rith in New York toZe’ev Hertzberg-1888.

Zichron Ya’acov-1910

B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant 7

established Safah Berurah, the first organiza-tion aimed at “spreading the Hebrew lan-guage and speech among people in all walksof life.” The Jerusalem Lodge pledged “tostrive its utmost to revive the language andsupport the organization at all times accord-ing to our ability.” A year later the groupfounded and elected the Va’ad Ha-LashonHa-Ivrit (the Hebrew LanguageCommittee), the precursor of the Academyof the Hebrew Language, which to this dayis the supreme authority on the Hebrewlanguage. The committee, made up of Ben-Yehuda, Yellin, R. Hayyim Hirschenson,and Luncz, devoted itself to determining theHebrew vocabulary needed for daily use andcreating, out of the Babel-like variations, auniform pronunciation for Hebrew speech.

Beyond the ideal of making Hebrew com-mon to all Jews, the Jerusalem Lodge had apractical reason to support the widespreaduse of Hebrew. True to the egalitarian andpluralistic principles of B’nai B’rith, theJerusalem Lodge was the only institution atthe time which opened its doors to all eth-nic groups and from its inception set out tomeld the fragmented Jewish sects into a sin-

Jerusalem Lodge-1930s.

Hebrew Language Committee, sitting from left:Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Prof. Joseph Klausner,David Yellin.

gle Israelite community. If not yet the lin-gua franca of the burgeoning Yishuv,Hebrew was the common denominatorbetween the Ashkenazi and Sephardi com-munities, and the importance of maintain-ing its use at lodge meetings was constantlystressed.

Aside from Hebrew classes, B’nai B’rith

Hebrew, was the creation of the firstHebrew-speaking kindergarten inJerusalem. (There already was one openedin 1898 in Rishon Le Zion and another inJaffa opened in 1902.) Opened in 1903 in arented house on B’nai B’rith Street, thekindergarten was immediately filled tocapacity with 70 children. In a light-filledroom, children of Ashkenazi and Sephardibackgrounds spent the day playing and eat-ing together and learning to speak the sametongue.

The reaction from the ultra-Orthodoxworld was swift. Rabbinical authorities hadalready forbidden the study of science andforeign languages and they viewed thekindergarten with the same contempt. Therabbis posted warnings throughout the city—the kindergarten would lead Jewish chil-dren astray, down a path of corruption andruin. David Yellin, one of the kindergartenfounders, responded to the attacks in writ-ing, expounding on the goals and activitiesof the new facility. Providing childcare formothers who had to work, the kindergartenprevented youngsters from roaming thestreets and offered them “an environmentbeyond the squalor of their homes.” Yellinstressed that children were taught the dailyprayers (“so they will understand what istaught them at home”) and the elements ofreading, while only hearing the strains oftheir “sacred tongue.”

The kindergarten was an educationalexperiment that set the tone for furtherHebrew education in the country.

Subsequently B’nai B’rith opened a semi-nary for kindergarten teachers in Jerusalem,and the lodges in Jaffa, Safed, Tiberias,Rehovot, Haifa, and Beirut followed theJerusalem example and opened Hebrew-speaking kindergartens. As the languagewars were being fought on the universitylevel—Hebrew vs. German as the languageof instruction at the Technion in Haifa—the battle for Hebrew was being won withthe new generation as scores of youngsterslearned to speak what was destined tobecome the national tongue.

8 B’nai B’rith and Israel: The unbroken covenant

offered evening courses—continuing educa-tion, in today’s parlance—in severalEuropean languages. Taught on a voluntarybasis by lodge members, it was part of anall-out effort to combat the missionaryschools that were luring adults and childreninto their classrooms. So serious was thethreat that B’nai B’rith denied membershipto anyone who sent their children to one ofthe many missionary schools.

HEBREW FOR TOTS

Another B’nai B’rith initiative aimed atbridging the cultural and ethnic differencesin the Yishuv and encouraging the use of

First Hebrew Kindergarten.

Second Hebrew Kindergarten-1907.