new spiritual movement. Others followed him to the Holy Land and they too brought along their families. About thirty Hasidim left for Tiberias in 1764, then another group of three hundred Hasidim, led by Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, arrived in Safed in 1777. I do not know whether one of my ancestors came with the latter group but sixty years later, yet another Menahem Mendel, my great-great-great-grandfather whose tomb I had located in Tiberias, became one of the leaders of the remnants of the 1777 aliya.
THE 1777 ALIYA
I have no family records from the eighteenth century, but I can still hear Baba Esther’s voice: “They came in little boats across the Black Sea.” Even if my ancestors arrived in the country later, their voyages and experiences would have been similar to those who came there with Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk.
In 1777, when the total Jewish population in Palestine numbered three thousand, the arrival of three hundred Hasidim was an important event. Led by Menahem Mendel along with Avraham of Kalisk and Israel of Polotsk, the Hasidim came from Belarus and Volhyn—a province once in Poland and now in northwest Ukraine. They began their difficult journey by land then crossed the Dniester, the river that marked the border of the Ottoman Empire. They continued to Galati where they boarded small boats and crossed over the marshy Danube delta and the Black Sea to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, now Istanbul. There they lingered until they could join some local Sephardi Jews who were going on pilgrimage to the Holy Places in Eretz Israel and together they sailed down the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.
A month before Rosh Hashana the Hasidim disembarked at Acre and, by donkey, crossed the Galilee to Safed. Their journey had lasted over five months. (The term “Ashkenazim” means Jews from Germany—Ashkenaz in Hebrew—and includes Jews from central and Eastern Europe. “Sephardim” means Jews from Spain—Sepharad—but it often refers to North African and Middle Eastern Jews as well. In Israel the term “Mizrahiym”—Easterners—is now applied to Jews from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries.)
Rabbi Israel described their state of mind upon reaching Eretz Hakodesh, the Holy Land: “This is the day we have yearned for, to rejoice and be happy in our land, the object of our delight, the desire of our hearts and joy of our pursuits, the holiest of holy, a land filled with a variety of fruits and other pleasures, and all of the commandments which one can fulfill only here.”1
But reality stood in sharp contrast to the Hasidim’s joy. Two earthquakes had wrecked Safed seventeen years before their arrival and even undamaged houses stood empty because their inhabitants had fled. Still, wrote Israel, it was a city where “one could earn a living if she [Safed] were settled, but we do not know the language nor the local customs.” He was echoing the words of Rabbi Moshe Basola who was there in the 1520s: “Whoever does not have capital for commerce should have a profession—weaver, silversmith, tanner, shoemaker, or builder. Strong men can hire themselves out as day laborers and they will be well paid. Even a tailor can make a living. But he who cannot be a teacher or a servant in a shop or a home, should not come here ... and become a burden to the community.”2 The Hasidim soon ran out of money and Rabbi Israel was writing to Vitebsk for help, reminding his co-religionists that Jews everywhere should support their brethren who were risking their lives to redeem the Holy Land—a recurring theme in Jewish history, reiterated in every community, in every generation:
Thus, our brothers, the Children of Israel, who are merciful and are the children of generous people, it is upon you and upon us to rebuild the House of the Lord, and for all of Israel to become stronger by settling the Holy Land. Cherish [those] ... who risked death and abandoned themselves [to danger] ... Feed them and dress them, so that they can stay in the Holy Land and beg for mercy from above, and pray for the whole community of Israel. After all, you have a major share in the welfare of this land ...
And whoever was touched in his heart by the fear of God, should take pity of those remnants that stay and redeem the soil, who pray for peace over our land and over all of Israel, so that the entire nation will soon swell and come together in the light of Zion, in the House of the God of Jacob. And the virtues of those holy ones in the land will protect all those who make vows and donations ... And I pray for your peace from the Master of Peace. So say I, Israel, son of Peretz, my teacher and rabbi, may he be blessedly remembered in the next world.3
On top of their poverty, the Hasidim had other problems. Their Mitnagdim opponents in Lithuania had sent defamatory letters about them to the small Ashkenazi community in Safed. Then, the Sephardim in the city became suspicious of the Hasidim because of their nontraditional rituals, such as shaking their bodies and raising their voices during prayer. The Hasidim apparently received little help from the city’s Sephardim and the pakid, the official representative of the Jewish community to the Ottoman authorities, discriminated against them. In 1781, along with many of his Hasidim, Menahem Mendel accepted the invitation from the Jews of Tiberias to move there. (On the whole, the Hasidim got along well with the Sephardi majority in the country and it is often noted that Menahem Mendel’s son Moshe married the daughter of a learned and wealthy Sephardi from Jerusalem.) Five years later, Avraham of Kalisk moved to Tiberias where he was greatly admired and it was said that even the Sephardim came to hear him pray. Menahem Mendel died in 1788 and was mourned by Ashkenazim and Sephardim alike. Avraham became the leader of the local Hasidim. By then many of the original 1777 group had died.
In a book filled with descriptions of life in Tiberias during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, titled Sefer Teveria,4 I came across one of Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk’s favorite Yiddish songs, a song full of longing which my great-grandmother Baba Esther used to sing to us. (The verse reproduced here is not the one quoted in the book.)
| Vot ikh gehat a shifale | If I had a little boat |
| Vot ikh tsu dir gekumen. | I would have come to you. |
| Voste gizeyn meyn fabitterte hartz | Then you would see my embittered heart |
| Und meyne farveynte oygn. | And my tear-filled eyes. |
WEAVING THE THREADS
THE MONTEFIORE CENSUSES
Armed with the names of relatives and information from the yortzeiten recorded in the Humashim, I turned to the Montefiore Censuses to learn more about the Jews living in Palestine in the nineteenth century. The five censuses, or mifkadim, taken between 1839 and 1876, were commissioned by Sir Moses Montefiore and his wife, Lady Judith. The son of a successful Sephardi merchant, Montefiore grew up in England where he became well known for his contributions to civic causes and was knighted by Queen Victoria. He remained a committed Jew who tried to help his people, especially the ones in Eretz Israel who were living in poverty, spending their days in prayer and study.
Jewish immigration to Palestine had increased during the first part of the nineteenth century, but few newcomers could earn a living largely because of the poor economic conditions in the country. Most Ashkenazi Jews existed on welfare, on haluka, which further discouraged them from seeking work. Montefiore tried to motivate them to get jobs, to engage in farming and manufacturing. He and his wife visited the country in 1839, two years after the earthquake that had flattened Safed and Tiberias and killed thousands of people, the majority of whom were Jews. Montefiore wished to assess the damage caused by the disaster and provide aid to the victims. He might have also wanted to assure the fair allocation of funds. The first census was taken during that visit, recording the names of 6,048 Jews.
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