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Bar-Ilan, Meir (1880-1949)
Leader of religious Zionism. Bar-Ilan was born in Volozhin, Russia, the
son of Rabbi Naphtali Zevi Judah Berlin, who was the head of the famous
yeshivah there. Meir later Hebraized his name. As a young man he joined
the Mizrachi movement, representing it at the Seventh Zionist Congress (1905)
at which, unlike the majority of Mizrachi delegates, he voted against the
Uganda Scheme.
In 1911 he was appointed secretary of the world Mizrachi movement, working
in Berlin; it was he who coined the Mizrachi slogan "Erez Yisrael le-am
Yisrael al pi Torat Yisrael " ("The land of Israel for the people of Israel
according to the Torah of Israel"). He moved to the United States in 1915,
served as president of the U.S. Mizrachi, and from 1925 was a member of
the Board of Directors of the Jewish National Fund.
In 1926 Bar-Ilan settled in Jerusalem where he played a leading role
in the life of the Jewish community. He was a leading opponent of the
Palestine partition plan in 1937, and of the British White Paper of 1939,
and advocated civil disobedience and complete noncooperation of the Jewish
population with the British authorities. After the establishment of the
State of Israel, he organized a committee of scholars to examine the legal
problems of the new state in the light of Jewish law. He also founded
an institute for the publication of a new complete edition of the Talmud.
Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, founded by the American Mizrachi movement,
is named in his honor, as is the Meir Forest in the Hebron hills, and
the moshav Bet Meir near Jerusalem.
His older brother, Hayyim Berlin (1832--1912) was also a famous rabbi.
He served in several Russian towns and in 1906 settled in Jerusalem where
he was appointed Chief Rabbi in 1909. A yeshivah in New York is named
after him.
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by C.D.I. Systems 1992 (LTD) and Keter.
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