THE AMERICAN JEWISH/ISRAEL CONNECTION

 

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 17^th 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.     

Rabbi Raphael Carigal

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.

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.  

Warder Cresson (Michael
Boaz Israel)

 

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.

In 1879, a group of American Jews who settled in Jerusalem attempted to form an American kolel with the support of the US consul in Jerusalem J.G. Wilson. Presumably, this kolel would be supported by American Jewry at the expense of the other kolelim in Palestine, and the Vaad Clali, the umbrella halukkah organization in Jerusalem, made sure to block its establishment. The Vaad was initially successful and, instead, took responsibility for the Americans’ welfare. Despite this, under the initiative of Nahum Harris, an American retiree living in Jerusalem, an American kolel was finally formed in 1896, separate from the Vaad Clali, and they called it Kolel America Tif’eret Yerushalaim. The Brisker Rebbe Yehoshua Lob Diskin was persuaded to be its spiritual head and under his guidance, contributions to Kolel America increased yearly. By 1900, membership had reached almost 300. It still exists to this day.

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.

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, 3^rd 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.