Page 49 - HaMizrachi Tu BiShvat 5782 - USA

There’s been nothing like it in human history. A small and ancient
people loses its land and forgets how to speak its language; wanders
defenselessly for hundreds, thousands of years throughout the world
with its G-d and sacred books; meets with contumely, persecution,
violence, dispossession, banishment, mass murder; refuses to give
up; refuses to surrender its faith; continues to believe that it will one
day be restored to the land it lost; manages in the end, by dint of its
own efforts, against all odds, to gather itself from the four corners
of the earth and return there; learns again to speak the language of
its old books; learns again to bear arms and defend itself; wrests its
new-old home from the people that had replaced it; entrenches itself
there; builds; fructifies; fortifies; repulses the enemies surrounding
it; grows and prospers in the face of all threats. Had it not happened,
could it have been imagined? Would anyone have believed it possible?

Hillel Halkin, Letters to an American Jewish Friend: A Zionist’s Polemic

t’s an honor to speak with you today! mother’s family. This is partly because to an American Jewish Friend: A Zionist
Let’s begin with your family history. it is a family of creative writers and Polemic, is dedicated to my father, for
You are a grandson of Rabbi Meir Bar- partly because I knew them better; my Zionism comes from him. Ulti-
IIlan, one of the most critical figures they all lived near us in New York. I mately, my parents made their long
in Mizrachi’s history, and a great-grand- unfortunately only met my mother’s planned Aliyah when my father retired.
son of the Netziv, Rosh Yeshivah of the father, Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, one time in Their Aliyah was well thought out in
famous Volozhin Yeshivah. How did your my life, when I was a small boy. Also, advance, unlike mine; my wife and I
family background influence your own my father’s family came from White made a spontaneous decision, very
life path? Russia, which was Chabad territory, quickly and impulsively, to move to
It’s something I hardly ever talk about while my mother’s family, the Netziv Israel.
to anyone, for a simple reason: If I tell and Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, came from Although I grew up in a very Zionist
an observant Jew I descend from Rabbi Lithuania, which was arch Mitnagdic home, as I grew older in my high school
Meir Bar-Ilan, they think, “what hap- territory. Although there is a bit of both and college years, I developed a very
pened to you?” So it’s a yichus I generally the Mitnagid and the Chassid in me, I strong American identity as well. I
keep “undeclared.” feel closer to the spirit of Chabad than experienced great conflict between
to Mitnagdic Talmudism. these two sides of myself. Like many
But the second thing, and this goes American Jews who settle in Israel,
deeper, is that I have a different kind What led you to make Aliyah in 1970? but unlike most American Jews who
of yichus on my father’s side. My father’s haven’t yet made Aliyah, I really felt I
brother was a well-known poet, Shimon Both sides of my family were strongly had to choose one or the other.
Halkin, and my father’s cousin, Shmuel Zionist. All the years we were living
Halkin, was a renowned Yiddish poet. in New York, my father suffered great It was always clear to me that if I stayed
The fact is, I identify more closely with guilt for not living in Israel. It really in America, I would not partake at all in
my father’s family than I do with my weighed on him. My first book, Letters Jewish life. Jewish life in America made

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