Yehoshua Barzillai

Yehoshua Barzillai (August 20, 1855 – May 1918) was a Russian-born Zionist leader, writer, and pioneer who played a pivotal role in the early Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel. A scholar and prodigy in his youth, Barzillai transitioned from a successful career in commerce and banking to dedicating his life to the Zionist cause, immigrating to Israel in 1897. Known for his passionate advocacy for Jewish agricultural settlement and self-reliance, he fought bureaucratic oppression in the Baron settlements, co-founded the Workers’ Association, and supported the establishment of key settlements like Ḥadera, Reḥovot, and Meṭula. His tireless efforts in promoting Herzl’s political Zionism, organizing illegal immigration, and contributing to Hebrew literature through newspapers and publications left a lasting impact on the Yishuv. Barzillai’s compassion for pioneers and workers, coupled with his unwavering commitment to Jewish revival, made him a revered figure in the Zionist movement.

Biography

Born in the town of Kletzek, Minsk Region (White Russia) on August 20, 1855 to his father, Rabbi Meir Moshe (a rabbinical rabbi, son of the rabbi of the community, Rabbi Elimelech, and grandson and great-grandson of the Gaon of the Penim Me’irot book) and his mother, Matla-Ribka, who knew the Hebrew language and was well-versed in Talmudic literature. In his childhood Yehoshua became known as a prodigy, a scholar of Torah novellæ; he began reading modern Hebrew literature, and when his family moved to Vilna, he prepared himself to study at a Russian gymnasium, but due to his father’s opposition, he abandoned this plan.

At the age of 16, he married a woman. He successfully engaged in commerce, railroad construction contracting, and banking. He also engaged in charitable and benevolent associations and aspired to work for the settlement of Jews on land in Russia, in order to improve their economic and political status. However, the disturbances that broke out in Russia turned him towards Zion and he liquidated his businesses and on June 7, 1897 He arrived in Israel.

Here he found the peasants in the Baron settlements enslaved to the arbitrariness of the bureaucracy, he fought them with words, propaganda, and in writing in the newspapers HaMelitz and HaTsafira, in which he also advocated to act in favor of the recreational settlements of Gedera, which he saw as a relief for the Hebrew landowners who were free in body and spirit from the burden of bureaucracy. Because of this he suffered persecution from the bureaucracy.

In order to promote the strengthening of the Lovers of Zion movement for the Yishuv, he went to Russia in 1948. He was the initiator and the spirit behind the secret society Sons of Moses, founded by Aḥad Ha‘am, which played a large part in reviving the spirit and energy of the people for their resurrection in the Land of Israel. He toured the cities of Russia on a propaganda campaign for the Lovers of Zion and to establish a stock exchange for planting vineyards for the benefit of the first Workers’ Association, which he founded together with the dreamer-fighter like him, Michael Halperin, in the trends of pioneering and returning to the land, and he won the hearts of his listeners more with the e of faith that flowed from him than with his oratorical skills.

With the great awakening of aliyah in 1989-1990, he returned to Israel and was the stimulating and influential force in the Palestine Ministry in Jaffa during the Tyomkin era and also during the depression that followed. He always spurred those at the top to greater enthusiasm and energy, because time was precious and the people needed redemption soon. When the Turkish government opened the gates of the country to the Hebrew aliyah, he made attempts (which were somewhat successful) to organize ships of illegal immigrants without the knowledge of the authorities.

Because of conflicts between him and the short-sighted individuals involved in the revival effort, he suffered from scarcity and hardship. For about six months he lived in a tent in Ness Ziona, living on bread and olives and sleeping in the cowshed. Later, he was appointed director of the schools in Jaffa, secretary, and later director of the executive committee of the Lovers of Zion office in Jaffa. He participated in the craftsman center, in the founding of the girls’ school in Jaffa, and helped establish the settlements of Ḥadera, Reḥovot, Bartuvia, Meṭula, and Mishmar Hayarden. In every action he participated in, he put his soul’s passion into the cause of the people’s resurrection in their land. In the years 1893–1898, with the help of Yehuda Granovsky, he edited the monthly Letters from the Land of Israel. He devoted himself to establishing the Workers’ Fund through the Foreign Affairs Committee. In 1899 he traveled abroad on behalf of the JCA in order to acquire the possibility of expanding the settlement in Ḥadera and spent a lot of money at his own expense to promote Herzl’s political Zionism, which he joined with enthusiasm from its inception, and especially to distribute shares of the Zionist bank JCT that was founded at that time. He participated in the Zionist conference in Minsk in 1902. During the Uganda Controversy, he was one of the leaders of the fighters among the Zionists of Zion. In 1904, he was accepted as a clerk at the Anglo-Palestine Bank branch in Jaffa and later sent to establish and manage the bank’s branch in Jerusalem. There, he participated in the founding of the People’s House and the Hebrew Gymnasium. He fought the bank’s main management in order to expand assistance for Hebrew economic enterprise, without the strictures and cautions that are customary in a commercial bank for profit alone, and was therefore dismissed from his position, and the wave of protests that arose as a result in the settlement and in the Zionist world brought him only moral satisfaction. He devoted himself to cultural enterprises: publishing the books Qahelet and La‘am and organized the Craftsmen’s Center, the Workers’ Club, and more in Jerusalem.

In addition to his business, he also wrote articles on the affairs of the Yishuv and current issues in HaMelitz, HaTsafira, HaShelaḥ, Ha‘Or, HaTzvi, and HaShqafa, as well as stories, novellas and drawings in Qaveret by Aḥad Ha‘am, and in the newspapers and collections HaShelaḥ, HaMelitz, HaYeqev, Ha’Osem, Jezreel, HaTsafira, HaTsofe, Ha‘Or, Ha‘Omer, HaMevaser, Luaḥ Aḥi’asaf, Luntz’s Luaḥ Eretz Yisrael, Ha‘Olam, HaPo‘el Hatza‘ir, Aḥdut and Ben-Yehuda’s newspapers. To mark the half-anniversary of his literary activity and his immigration to Israel, his admirers published a volume of his writings in 1912 entitled The Writings of Yehoshua Barzilai.

At the beginning of World War I, he went to Europe for political Zionist advocacy. He returned to Switzerland, attended university classes in Geneva in his old age. There he died in May 1918 and was temporarily buried in a metal coffin in the city of Lausanne. Through the efforts of his son-in-law, Rabbi Yisrael Czerwinski, his coffin was brought to Eretz Israel, and at a funeral held for him by the National Committee, he was brought to be buried on the Mount of Olives on March 1933.

A neighborhood and a street in Tel Aviv were named after him.