Historically,
there has been no greater a friend of Israel than the United States. And this
was made perfectly clear with recent events when President Biden publicly stood
in solidarity with Israel, as did his predecessor President Trump. The two
countries had never been in a state of war, or armed conflict, and Israel has
never provoked the United States to have sanctions placed on it.
Even though
the US has historically been plagued by anti-Semitism as with many other
countries around the world, the American Jewish community has always been the
largest (today, the second largest after Israel) in the world, as well as the
most prosperous and influential. Not so surprising considering that the Jewish
community in America has been in existence for over 450 years and has never
suffered from pogroms or expulsions (although there has been some local
attempts a couple of times during this entire period). In addition, the Jewish
connection to their ancestral homeland was not much different than that of
other Diaspora communities, and it’s this connection that this posting will
focus on.
There is a
legend that many of the Native American peoples are descended from the Ten Lost
Tribes of Israel – the Chumash, for example, who inhabited the area in and
around, what is today, Los Angeles. Is it possible that this tribe was named
after the Five Books of Moses? Are they, and other such tribes, among those who
are descended from the ancient Israelites?
But in order
to begin with a definite beginning of a Jewish community on American soil, we
would have to go back to the year 1654 when a group of Portuguese “New
Christians” from Brazil arrived in New Amsterdam, later New York, and sought to
establish a community. They were refugees who were fleeing the inquisition that
had just been established in Brazil, but the then governor of New Amsterdam, Peter
Stuyvesant, wasn’t very enthusiastic about having them. The problem was solved
only with the intervention of the Dutch government and thus, the American
Jewish community was established. In the first half of the 17th
century, halukkah activity was very brisk in Brazil until the inquisition
stopped all that. The “New Christian” refugees, now settled in New Amsterdam,
decided it would be better to wait before reestablishing a halukkah system in
their new homes. Eventually, they were able to return to Judaism and in the same
year as their settlement, established the first congregation, the Spanish/Portuguese
Shearith Yisrael (which still exists), as well as other Jewish institutions. At
the same time, they quickly adapted themselves to the freedoms of the new and
burgeoning American society – as long as they weren’t black or red. In 1759,
the local halukkah system was established with the visit of Rabbi Moshe Malkhi
of Safed to Shearith Yisrael. The following year, Rabbi Malkhi arrived in
Newport RI, one of the main mercantile centers in North America, and
visited the Yeshuat Yisrael Synagogue. But it was New
York that became the center of Halukkah from North America. Other halukkah
centers were later established in Newport and Philadelphia.
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| Rabbi Raphael Carigal |
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| Mordecai Manuel Noah |
Rabbi Malkhi
was followed by Rabbi Raphael Carigal of Hebron who visited twice in 1771 and
1773, and then, two years later, by Rabbi Samuel Cohen of Jerusalem. Halukkah
was suspended during the Revolutionary War, but afterwards, it resumed. In the early decades of the 19th century,
American, and American Jewish interest in active Jewish Restoration to its
homeland was first aroused. This “nationalist” idea was best personified by
Philadelphia-born Mordechai Manuel Noah, playwright, editor, and diplomat. As
editor of the National Advocate in 1818, he was the recipient of a letter
written by President John Adams in which he stated his hope that the nation of
Israel will soon return to its homeland. In the 1820s, Noah declared the island
of Ararat in upstate New York as a place of refuge for Jews where they would
all be gathered and then eventually brought to the Land of Israel. And as he
considered the indigenous Americans to be descended from the ancient
Israelites, indigenous Americans were invited to participate. The project
failed, however, and thereafter, he advocated for the immediate settlement of
the ancient Jewish homeland.
During
this time, thousands of Jews had immigrated to the US from German-speaking
countries. This community grew in numbers and began to dominate the previously
dominant Sephardim. Most were reform, and some were orthodox, but American
Jewry now became defined by these German Jewish immigrants. In 1832, two
members of the orthodox part of this community, Rabbis Israel Baer Kursheedt of
Congregation B’nai Yeshurun in New York and Isaac Leeser of Mikve Yisrael
Congregation in Philadelphia, followed the lead of Western European Jewry and
established the American branch of the Trumat Hakodesh Society which
transferred halukkah funds to Palestine via Europe, bypassing the need of the
emissaries. This was in reaction to the suspicious activities among some of the
emissaries who began to arrive in the US. The Society lasted for 20 years.
The leaders
of reform Jewry, on the other hand, were Rabbis Isaac Mayer Wise of Hebrew
Union College and David Einhorn of Baltimore who preached that the best path
for maintaining a Jewish presence in Palestine lay in “practical colonization”
and away from the Halukkah method. They were also strong opponents of a
national revival in the ancient homeland and when the Zionist movement was in
its infancy, they, along with the orthodox, were among its most outspoken
opponents. However, because of their long held beliefs in “practical
colonization”, these reform, anti-Zionist, German-American Jewish immigrants,
can be considered the first outspoken group of Zionists in the US. Gradually, though,
mainstream Zionism made inroads even into this community. Among its first
advocates was Rabbi Bernard Felsenthal of Chicago in 1900 resulting in the
condemnation by many of his reform colleagues. Soon, three faculty members of
Hebrew Union College who were also pro-Zionist - Henry Malter, Max Margolis,
and Max Schlessinger – resigned in protest of the College’s newly-appointed
president, Dr. Kaufman Kohler’s, anti-Zionist views.
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| Mendes Cohen |
American
Jewish pilgrimages to Palestine, made by both prominent and ordinary American
Jews, began around the 1830s. Such pilgrimages would often raise their communal
status in the Jewish community back in America. Among the earliest of the more
prominent pilgrims were: Mendes Cohen of Baltimore, first American to explore
the Nile; William Pollock of New York, a Halukkah activist, who went in 1834;
Simeon Abrahams, Halukkah activist, who earned an honorary rabbinical degree in
Jerusalem in 1848; James Nathan, leader in the Jewish community, who visited
the Temple Mount area; and Edwin de Leon of South Carolina who as American
Consul-General in Egypt in the 1850s also protected American missionary work in
Jaffa.
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Warder Cresson (Michael
Boaz Israel) |
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| Emek Rephaim neighborhood |
The
beginning of a settled American community, however, had an unusual start.
In 1844, Warder Cresson, a Quaker from Philadelphia, had just been appointed
American consul of Jerusalem. He had gone to Palestine in that capacity and
also as missionary in order to convert Jews to Christianity, but on his way
there, a rumor had circulated in the halls of Congress that he was mentally
unstable. When Cresson reached Jerusalem, he was informed that his appointment
had been withdrawn. Undeterred, he set about preaching the gospel. However, he
became enamored with the piety of the local Jews in spite of conversion
attempts by the Christian missionaries as well as the constant oppression by
the Turkish rulers, who had controlled Palestine since 1516, and the Arab
settlers. By 1848, therefore, he became Jewish and adopted the name, Michael
Boaz Israel. He returned to the States the following year to settle some family
affairs, and four years later, he went back to Palestine – permanently. Thus,
the first American Jew to make aliyah was a convert to Judaism, and American
Jews would make aliyah ever since. In 1852, Cresson, now Israel, attempted to
establish, with the support of a Jewish-Christian Society in England, a Jewish
farm settlement in Emek Rephaim in Jerusalem as a model for future Jewish farm
settlements. It was unsuccessful.
From 1854-60, the Jerusalem neighborhood Mishkenot Shaananim was built. The
building of this neighborhood, the bulk of which was paid for through the last
will and testament of Judah Touro, New Orleans businessman, was led by the
British philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore, and Gershom Kursheedt, member of
the New Orleans City Council, chief executor of the Touro will, and son of
Israel Baer Kursheedt.
The Civil War affected Palestine on two levels – halukkah and
cotton. During the War, all halukkah activity from the United States ceased.
This would have adversely impacted the welfare of Palestinian Jewry were it not
for the large contributions coming in from the centers in Europe and North
Africa. At the same time, demand for cotton increased. This was the economic
mainstay of the southern United States and American cotton was in high demand
in Europe. During the War, its production plummeted and Europe was forced to
look elsewhere to satisfy demand. Palestine and Egypt were, at that time, huge
cotton producers and demand for Palestinian cotton skyrocketed. Unfortunately,
of the few agricultural enterprises Palestinian Jews engaged in, cotton
production was not one of them, being in the hands, mainly, of Arab fellaheen.
Consequently, any income from the selling of cotton to Europe did not benefit
the Jews, but it did not benefit the fellaheen either as they were “owned” by
the Arab effendi nobles who took the lion’s share of the monies that came in. After
the War, and during the Reconstruction period, southern American cotton
production gradually resumed and demand for the Palestinian and Egyptian
product decreased dramatically.
During this period, American
interest in the Land of Israel resumed, spearheaded particularly by the Board
of Delegates of American Israelites (est. 1859). The Board supported
Palestinian Jewry during the cholera outbreak in 1865, and two years later,
established a permanent fund for Jewish interests. They donated funding for the
new Mikve Yisrael Agricultural School, built in 1870, established a Jewish
hospital fund in Jerusalem, and worked with the American Consul in Jerusalem to
aid Jews during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-78).
Aside from these activities, there were others who made their
contributions to the Land of Israel. In 1866, a group of American evangelists
from Maine and New Hampshire moved to Palestine and, with the help of the
American vice-consul in Jerusalem Herman Leventhal, a convert to Christianity,
founded the settlement Mount Hope outside of Jaffa. The settlers would employ
local Jews, teaching them agricultural pursuits. It was their belief that such
enterprises would be a first step in bringing about a massive Jewish return to
Israel and with it, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Their efforts failed,
however as their settlement was exposed to constant Arab attacks as well as the
harsh elements of desert and marsh. After a year, most left Palestine
disillusioned.
In 1870, Simon Berman, a Polish-born American Jew, had settled in
Tiberias and founded the Holy Land Settlement Society. But despite its
promising start and support from many Palestinian Jewish quarters, this
enterprise, too, failed. Diplomat Benjamin Peixotto made a pilgrimage to
Palestine in 1874 in an attempt to relieve the persecution of the Jews as he
had in Romania as US Consul-General in that country.
By the late 1870s, the
North American Relief Society for the Indigent Jews of Jerusalem (est. in 1853
by the Portuguese Jewish and orthodox German Jewish communities as the successor
to the Trumat haKodesh) was contributing $750 a year to Palestine, by way of
the halukkah center in London, with instructions to divide the amount equally
between the Ashkenazim and Sephardim. The New York Society for the Relief of
the Poor in Palestine forwarded about $1,250 a year. Baltimore congregations
Chizook Emunah and the local Shearith Israel would send about $500 a year.
Beginning in the 1880s, with the massive arrival of the Jewish
immigrants from Eastern Europe, New York's
Lower East Side where the majority settled, became the major hub of the infant
Zionist movement. In 1882, Joseph Bluestone, a prominent physician, established
there the first such society, the New York Lovers of Zion. By 1900, 24 such
organizations were located in New York alone, with a membership of 5000. These
were the nucleus of the American Zionist Federation.
But this was also a time when the Ottoman Empire was experiencing
the rise of non-Turkish nationalisms within its borders. Therefore, fearing the
rise of Jewish nationalism, a communication from the minister of foreign
affaris was sent to Gen. Lew Wallace, United States minister to Turkey, in
which the statement was made that Jews would be made welcome anywhere in Turkey
except in Palestine. This was strongly opposed by Gen. Wallace and in 1884 he
took vigorous action against the threatened expulsion from Palestine of the
Lubrowsky brothers, naturalized American citizens. In 1887 and 1888 attempts
were made by the Turkish government to limit the sojourn of American Jews in
Jerusalem to one month—later extended to three months. This was opposed, as
well, by Wallace’s successor, Oscar Straus, a Jew. Due to the support given him
by Secretary of State Bayard, (and later, by Secretaries Blaine, Gresham, and
Hay) who contended that the United States, by reason of its Constitution, could
not recognize any distinction between American citizens in respect to their
religion, successfully halted any steps to expel American citizens who happened
to be Jews.
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| Poriya, Galilee |
In 1897, there was an American delegation to the First Zionist
Congress that was held in Basle, Switzerland. Until 1914, American Aliyah, mainly of Eastern
European Jews who had settled in the United States and held strongly socialist
views, continued at a slow pace in spite of obstacles imposed by Turk and Arab
alike. In 1908, an Ahuza society, whose purpose was to purchase land in
Palestine in order to establish new Jewish agricultural communities, was formed
in St. Louis by Simon Goldman, formerly, the leader of Hoveve Zion in England.
Soon, other Ahuza societies were formed throughout the US, from New York to Los
Angeles. Sometimes, Goldman, himself, purchased plots of land with his own
money – for example, Poriya in 1911, first settled by members of American
Hehalutz, thus, becoming the first settlement founded entirely by Americans. In
1913, the Los Angeles Ahuza, and later, the LA branch of the Nathan Straus
Palestine Advancement Society, attempted to purchase 17 acres of land in
Palestine. Such activity, however, was halted during World War I when the
Turkish rulers in Palestine caused the Jews to suffer from oppression and
starvation. Many were expelled from the country. During much of the war, the US
officially declared its neutrality allowing American Jews to form emergency
committees to aid the Jewish communities in the war-torn lands of Palestine and
Europe. In 1915, due to the influence of Henry Morgenthau Sr., a Jew and
ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, the situation eased, somewhat, and he
arranged for a convoy of American warships to bring food supplies and medical
equipment to Palestine. By 1916, some Americans volunteered to fight in the
Zion Mule Corps which distinguished itself in the Dardanelles Campaign. Many of
the Zionist leaders such as David Ben Gurion, Yitzkhak Ben Zvi, and Pinhas
Rutenberg, found refuge in the US, particularly New York, where they continued
their Zionist activities. (It was there that Ben Gurion met a young Zionist
activist, Paula Munweis. She, later, became Mrs. David Ben Gurion.) The primary
goals of these Zionist leaders were twofold: One, to prepare young Jews for
settlement in Palestine. And two, to form a Jewish Legion of American, as well
as Palestinian and other western Jews, to help the British fight the Turks for
the liberation of Palestine. Chapters of Jewish Legion Committees were formed
from New York to Los Angeles and four thousand volunteered to fight. They,
eventually, arrived in Britain and formed into the 39th Battalion of the Royal
Fusiliers. Some of the more prominent American Legionnaires who either made
aliyah or contributed to other fields elsewhere were:
Gershon Agron who founded the
Palestine Post in 1932, later becoming the Jerusalem Post in 1950; Nathan Ausubel who
fought in the Jordan Valley in 1918, author of “A Pictorial History of the
Jewish People”; Nehemiah
Rabin, father of Yitzkhak Rabin, socialist activist during the
Mandatory period.
By December 1917, Palestine was under full British control. The
next year, a Zionist Commission was formed under Chaim Weizmann to advise the
new British governing authorities on Jewish matters in Palestine, and Americans
were well-represented. They included:
Dr. Harry Friedenwald, eye specialist who
later, bought the land near Hadera that became the Yaar Shalom neighborhood; Robert Szold who
was active in the Palestinian economy (see below); Rabbi David de Sola Pool,
Rabbi of Shearith Yisrael, New York.
When the
war had ended, many of the American members of the Jewish Legion made aliyah.
They were later joined by other American pioneers and helped to make valuable
contributions to Palestinian society and the rebuilding of Israel. During the
economic crises in the 1920s when many Palestinians were unemployed, the
American community was hard-hit. They could only barely make a living as manual
laborers. Many returned to the US, but for those who stayed and persevered,
their accomplishments in Palestinian society were impressive. In 1924, the
American branch of Mizrahi purchased land near Jerusalem that became the
settlement of Neve Yaacov. In 1931, Gan Yavne was founded by the New York Ahuza
and later, 12 members of the Detroit Kvutzah settled in Ramat Yohanan. Avihayil
was founded by former fighters in the Jewish Legion in 1932.
During the
1930s, as the numbers of American halutzim increased, many settled on, and
integrated into, the kibbutzim that were newly established. But many
kibbutznikim considered Americans just too soft for the rigorous life of the
kibbutz. Consequently, there were many cases of Americans being turned
away from one kibbutz after another. Some became frustrated and disillusioned
and either settled in the cities or returned to the US. But halutzim from
America continued to arrive. In 1945, American Hashomer Hatzair established a
dye-casting plant on land that later became the modern town of Hatzor. American
halutzim also followed Palestinians in the settlement of the Negev (1946), in
defiance of British law, and from that time and during the years immediately
after independence, helped to settle Urim, Gal’on, and also Kfar Darom –
totally obliterated by the Arab army of Egypt in 1948, obliterated for a second
time by Ariel Sharon and his goons in 2005.
Since 1920, when 2 Americans were among those who fell defending
the settlement of Tel Hai against Arab attackers, Americans have contributed
greatly to the Yishuv’s defense - in the Haganah, Irgun, Lehi, Palmah, and
Jewish Brigade. During World War II, many Jews in the US were active on behalf
of the Zionist cause and of rescue efforts from Europe. As a result, the
Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs was established. The writer Ben Hecht,
whose works were later banned in Britain due to his pro-Jewish activities, was
active with the pro-Irgun Bergson Group under the Palestinian soldier/activist
Peter Bergson, which sought to create a Jewish army of Diaspora and Palestinian
Jews to fight the Nazis. Also due to his influence and Bergson’s, Hollywood and
Broadway joined forces and organized the American League for a Free Palestine,
and later, the American Arts Committee for Palestine. Because the Irgun played
a major part in organizing these movements, and because Ben Gurion would often
spread anti-Irgun propaganda, sometimes equating them with the Nazis, American
Jewish organizations, in collaboration with the Roosevelt administration, would
often attempt to silence them, both during and after the war. In spite of this,
the Hecht/Bergson organizations had some influence with the US government. In
1944, the US War Refugee Board was established and sent one of its emissaries,
Ira Hirschman, to neutral Turkey to help Jews escape from Europe. Several
thousand were saved from certain death as a result, and many were helped to
Palestine. Americans also aided in the struggle against the British blockade of
“illegal” immigration, both during and after World War II, and also helped to fight
off the impending British and Arab onslaughts in the months leading up to, and
during, the War of Independence. New York Yiddish actress Stella Adler, in
1946, chartered a ship to take Holocaust refugees to Palestine. Other ships
were also chartered by other sources. This activity was intensified later on
and resulted in the formation of an organization known as the Machal – Diaspora
Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers fighting for Israeli statehood and the right
of Diaspora Jews to settle in their ancestral homeland. 3500 joined Machal
including 1000 Americans.
The following is only a partial list of Americans who had made
Aliyah (and those that didn’t necessarily) and who made their mark in the Land
of Israel, both before and after Israeli independence:
Cyrus Adler, a Jew from Arkansas,
came to Palestine in 1890 as Antiquities Commissioner for the proposed
Columbian Exposition in Chicago to collect local archaeological exhibits; Julius Rosenwald, head
of Sears Roebuck and one of the financial backers of Palestinian agronomist
Aaron Aaronsohn’s experimental agricultural station in Atlit in 1909; Prof. Richard Gottheil of
Columbia University headed the American School of Archaeology in Jerusalem beginning
in 1909; Eliezer Joffe,
led one of the earliest arrivals of American heHalutz that helped to found
Poriya. Later, he became one of the founders of Nahalal (1921) where he was
appointed director of the Tnuva agricultural cooperative company; Yehoash, Yiddish poet,
lived for a while in Palestine in 1914 and translated the Bible into Yiddish; Justice Louis Brandeis of
the US Supreme Court, though he did not make aliyah, visited Palestine in 1919
to advocate for free private enterprise both in Palestine and the US. The
settlement Ein Hashofet was established and named after him, ironically, by the
American branch of the socialist Hashomer Hatzair movement; Jacob Lipman was
a soil expert and member of the Jewish Agency. In 1927, he took part in a
commission that surveyed the soil of Palestine; Felix Warburg, businessman, member of the
banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in New York, was a non-Zionist member of
the Jewish Agency, involved in the economic development of Palestine as well as
the Hebrew University. The settlement Kfar Warburg was named after him; Golda Meir, one of the
most prominent leaders of the Histadrut, made aliyah in 1921 along with her
husband, Morris
Myerson. In 1969, she was elected Prime Minister; Baruch Ostrovsky was
a socialist member of Ahuza in New York that purchased a plot of land north of
Tel Aviv that later became the town of Raanana. He became the town’s first
mayor; Albert Einstein visited
the Hebrew University in 1923, was long involved with its development. Upon the
death of Chaim Weizmann in 1952, he was approached to succeed him as president
of Israel. He politely turned down the request; The Benny Leonard Club, named after the famed American
boxer, was founded in 1923 and for many years, it was the
foremost club for champion Palestinian boxers; Jascha Heifetz, violinist, was a frequent
performer in Israel beginning with a concert in Tel Aviv in 1925; Rabbi Judah Magnes became
first Chancellor of the Hebrew University; The Slobodka Yeshiva, established in 1925
in Hebron, was American-supported and –funded and many American students who
had already made aliyah, came to study there. Several were murdered by Arabs in
the massacre that took place in the city in 1929 - Zeev Berman Halevy (NY), Aharon David Epstein (Chicago), Haim Krasner (Brooklyn), Aharon David Sheinberg (Memphis
TN), Yaacov Weksler (Chicago), Benjamin Hurwitz (NY);
Meir Bar Ilan,
leader of the American branch of Mizrahi, moved to Palestine in 1926 and became
one of Mizrahi’s leading representatives in the Vaad Leumi; Philanthropist Nathan Straus, after
whom the town of Netanya was named (1929), though he did not make aliyah, was
active in Palestinian society. He founded the Nathan and Lina Straus Health
Center in Jerusalem (1929) of which, Dr. Ephraim Michael Bluestone, former
director of Hadassah and son of Joseph Bluestone, was made chairman; Henrietta Szold,
founder of Hadassah in the United States (1912). In 1913, this organization
sent two nurses – Rose
Kaplan and Rachel
Landy – to lay the groundwork for Hadassah’s health and
sanitation work in Palestine. During the Mandate, Szold was elected to the Vaad
Leumi (1930), and established the Dept. of Social Welfare. She also led the
Youth Aliyah organization (1934) to rescue Jewish children from Nazi Germany.
The settlement of Kfar Szold (1935) was named after her; Robert Szold, 3rd
cousin of Henrietta Szold, along with Israel Brodie, established the American
Economic Committee for Palestine (1932); Nelson
Glueck, prominent American archaeologist, director of the
Jerusalem branch of the American School of Oriental Research, conducted
excavations in both western and eastern Palestine from the 30s to the 50s; In
the first Maccabiah, Sybil
Koff won four titles in track and field in the first
Maccabiah. David
White won the title for broad jump. In the 1935
games, Lillian
Copeland won titles in shot put, discus, and javelin as
did Yudy
Finkelstein. Marty Frieden and Jim Sandler were
prominent in the high jump as were Harry
Hoffman and Abe
Rosenkranz in track and field; Lilian Cornfeld was
Palestine’s foremost nutritionist and culinary expert in the 30s; Cantor Yoselle Rosenblatt arrived
in Palestine in 1933 to provide the musical accompaniment to the film “My
People’s Dream”. He died shortly afterwards and was buried on the Mount of
Olives; Irma Lindheim,
writer, founded the Kedem Film Co. (1934) along with other local theater
personalities at the time. She later became the second president of Hadassah; Leopold Jessner was
often, a guest director at Habimah; Maurice
Schwartz, Yiddish actor, was guest director at the Ohel Theater
directing the play “Yoshe Kalb” in 1937; Paul
Muni, Oscar-winning actor, performed the role of Emile Zola at
the Habimah Theater in 1938; Emanuel
Neumann founded the Committee of Palestine Survey (1943)
to invest in various water projects; Richard
Tucker, American cantor, life-long Zionist, provided the
musical background for the 1946 Palestinian film “Behind the Blockade”; Abba Hillel Silver,
who, as president of the Zionist Organization of America, was one of the most
outspoken Zionists during and after the Holocaust. In 1947, he became an
honorary citizen of Ramat Gan. One of his most famous quotes was, “Zionism is
not refugeeism”; Leonard
Bernstein conducted his first Israeli concert in 1947;
thereafter, he often made guest appearances with the Israel Philharmonic
Orchestra. Other musicians who often collaborated with the Orchestra since its
founding in 1936 included Emanuel
Feuerman, Leopold Godowsky, and Pierre Monteaux; Meyer Levin,
journalist, wrote the screenplay for the first Palestinian feature film in 12
years “My Father’s House” (1947); Moshe
Arens, former Foreign Minister under Prime Minister Shamir; Shimon Agranat was
appointed to the Israeli Supreme Court in 1950 and became Chief Justice in
1965; Scholem Asch,
Yiddish writer, made aliyah in 1956 and after his death the following year, the
Scholem Asch Museum in Bat Yam was founded in his memory; Artur Rubinstein,
American pianist, often played concerts in Israel whose proceeds went to the
establishment of the Artur Rubinstein Chair of Musicology at the Hebrew
University. The Rubinstein Forest outside of Jerusalem was named in his honor
and this was where his remains were reinterred one year after his death; Isaac Stern, former
president of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, performed many concerts in
Israel including a tour during the First Gulf War when a total of 39 missiles
were bombarding Tel Aviv; David
Sarnoff, chairman of NBC, became the first Honorary Fellow of
the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. While on a visit to Israel in 1951, he
proposed to Ben Gurion that he help to create Israel’s own television
broadcasting system; Herman
Pomeranze, and Akiva
Skidell, organized in 1952, the Hitahdut Olei America, a civic
organization which advocated the option of dual nationality and job placement
for American olim among other activities. It later became known as the
Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI); Kirk Douglas starred
in the first Hollywood feature to be filmed in Israel, “The Juggler” (1953); Nat Holman, introduced
basketball to Israel in the early 50s; Paul
Smith, actor, starred in many films, most notably “Exodus” and
“Popeye”; Shlomo Riskin,
Rabbi of Ephrat; Mike
Burstyn, popular actor and entertainer. Famous for his Kuni
Lemml character in the 70s; Ben
Ami Carter, made aliyah in the mid 60s as leader of the Black
Hebrew Israelites who claimed descent from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel; Miriam Levinger, wife
of YESHA leader Rabbi Moshe Levinger, one of the pioneers in the revival of the
Jewish community of Hebron; Tal
Brody, made aliyah during the 1968 Macabiah. He led Israel to
the European basketball championship; The
Kabbalah Centre, established in Jerusalem, in 1922 and then in
Los Angeles under Phillip
Berg in 1969, recently began to look into buying property
in the town of Rosh Pina near the Kabbalah capital of Safed. Through the
dissemination of its teachings by such celebrities as Roseanne Barr and
especially Madonna (both
of whom also looked into buying property in Israel), Kabbalah achieved great
popularity in Hollywood and Hollywood Kabbalists have maintained close
spiritual, if not physical ties, to Israel. Other present or former
high-profile devotees include: David and Victoria Beckham (LA
residents as of this writing), Sandra
Bernhard, Naomi Campbell, Laura Dern, Sarah Ferguson Duchess of York (US
resident), David
Geffen, Jeff Goldblum, Linda Gray, Jerry Hall, Goldie Hawn, Paris Hilton, Diane
Keaton, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, Lindsay Lohan, Courtney Love, Alanis
Morissette, Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Ritchie, Winona Ryder, Britney Spears, Barbra
Streisand, Elizabeth Taylor; Meir Kahane, a rabbi from New
York, founder of the Jewish Defense League in New York, which soon spread
nationwide, settled in Israel in 1970 where he founded Kach. He was one of the
most prominent figures in Hebron; David
Mark Berger, weightlifter, died in the 1972 Olympics massacre
in Munich; Baruch Marzel,
pro-Land of Israel activist resulting in his arrest and incarceration numerous
times by the Israeli police on orders from the Israeli government; Aulcie Perry, Israel
State Cup Champion for Macabi Tel Aviv (1976-1981), an African-American convert
to Judaism; Dr. Irving
Moskowitz, successful businessman in Los Angeles who has worked
to strengthen the Jewish presence in Israel’s heartland and Jerusalem in
particular; Chaim Potok,
author of “The Chosen”; Yaacov
Kirschen, cartoonist for the Jerusalem Post; Sam Spiegel, Hollywood
producer and life-long Zionist, the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem was
named after him, paid for through part of his estate; LaVon Mercer,
African-American basketball player. Played for Hapoel, and later Maccabi, Tel
Aviv, and lifted Maccabi to the Euroleague Finals in the late 80s; Dore Gold, Israeli
statesman and diplomat to the UN;. His brother is, and his father was, mayors
of Miami Beach; David
HaIvri, Land of Israel activist, hosts the Revava.org website; David Hartman,
established the Shalom Hartman Institute; Prof. Col. Irving Kett, professor of
civil engineering and technology and Cal State LA, long and distinguished
military career who engaged in two tours of duty in Israel as an American
officer. Former head of AFSI in the San Fernando Valley. Owned homes in
Northridge CA and Netanya; Alan
Beer, was a leader in the LGBT community in Israel who
organized the first Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem. He was murdered in the
bombing of bus #14 in 2001; Dr.
David Appelbaum, internationally respected Emergency Room
Director of the Shaare Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem when he was killed by an
Arab suicide bomber at a café in Jerusalem in 2003. His death inspired a group
of American doctors to make Aliyah; Prof.
Yisrael Aumann, winner, Nobel Prize for Economics; Anita Tucker, Gush
Katif activist, brutally expelled from her home under orders of PM Sharon in
2005; Ron Dermer,
political consultant in Israel
Eve Harow, spokeswoman for YESHA communities, a resident of
Ephrat; David Wilder,
spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron; Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of
Israel; Caroline Glick,
journalist, contributor to the Jerusalem Post; Yossi Klein Halevy, author and
journalist, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem; Yishai Fleischer, former
station manager of Arutz Sheva Radio, today, spokesman for the Jewish community
of Hebron; Eytan Fox,
film director. Openly gay, his films usually deal with gay subject matters. One
of his most popular and successful films, “Yossi & Jagger”, dealt with
homosexuality in the Israeli army during the Lebanon War; Tuvia Singer, rabbi
and anti-missionary activist, host of “The Tuvia Singer Show” on Arutz Sheva
Radio. Known as the “Chief Rabbi of Newstalk Radio”; Steven Spielberg, American
producer and director, long involved in film projects in Israel, the Spielberg
Film Archive of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is one of the foremost film
archives in the Middle East; Rabbi
Yehoshua Fass and Tony Gelbart, founders of Nefesh b’Nefesh
who, as of this writing, has succeeded in bringing 60,000 American olim to
Israel.
