Meir Bar-Ilan
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Meir Berlin, later Hebraized to Meir Bar-Ilan, (1880 - 1949, born Volozhin, Lithuania, died Jerusalem, Israel) was an Orthodox Judaism rabbi and leader of Religious Zionism, Mizrachi movement in USA and British Mandate of Palestine. Inspired the founding of Bar Ilan University in Israel which is named for him.
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Youth
He was a scholar of Talmud as well as the son of an important Haredi rabbi, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, known as the Netziv, who was the head of the famous Volozhin Yeshiva in Lithuania. After studying in the traditional yeshivas, he travelled to Germany where he became acquainted with a more modern form of Orthodox Judaism that had a more tolerant attitude to secular education and to political Zionism (although such attitudes were also present in the Lithuania of his youth, and in his grandfather).
Mizrachi movement
In 1905 he joined the Mizrachi movement, representing it at the Seventh Zionist Congress, voting against the "Uganda Scheme" to create a "temporary" Jewish "homeland in Uganda in East Africa as suggested by Great Britain.
In 1911 he was appointed secretary of the world Mizrachi (Religious Zionism) movement. In 1915 became president of the U.S. Mizrachi. In 1925 he became a member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish National Fund devoted to financing the rebuilding of the Jewish homeland in the then British Mandate of Palestine. In the 1920's, he also briefly served as acting president what is now Yeshiva University during the temporary absence of its then-president, Bernard Revel.
In 1926 he moved to Jerusalem. He opposed the Palestine partition plan in 1937, and of the British White Paper of 1939, and advocated civil disobedience and noncooperation by the Jews with the British.
Scholarship
After 1948, his actvities were scholastically oriented. He organized a committee of scholars to examine the legal problems of the new state in the light of Jewish law and founded an institute for the publication of a new complete edition of the Talmud. He also served as Minister of Religion in the Israeli government.
Bar-Ilan University
He inspired the founding of Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, founded in 1950, by the American Mizrachi movement, which is named for him: "The name Bar-Ilan was chosen, in honor of Rabbi Meir Bar- Ilan (Berlin), a spiritual leader who led traditional Judaism from the ashes of Europe to rebirth and renaissance in the Land of Israel." Bar-Ilan Street in Jerusalem is also named for him.
External links
- A Brief History of Bar-Ilan University (http://www.biu.ac.il/General/biu_history.html)