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Shining the Light of Torah:

The Zeira Family and Rosh Yehudi

For many years, Yisrael and Moriah Zeira lived with their eight children in a religious yishuv near Chevron.
What made them decide to leave their familiar tight-knit community and move their family to the heart
of Tel Aviv? And how did they launch Rosh Yehudi, one of the most impactful Kiruv organizations in Tel Aviv?
Rabbi Aron White spoke with Yisrael and Moriah to learn more about this remarkable family’s journey.

When did your connection to the city of Tel Aviv begin? How did Rosh Yehudi develop?
Yisrael: I was born and grew up in Tel Aviv, so I always had a Yisrael: About 25 years ago, we began Rosh Yehudi, an outreach
connection to the city. After high school, I studied at Yeshivat organization that would run a few shiurim for ba’alei teshuva and
Shavei Chevron in Chevron, and later became the director of the those interested in learning more about Judaism. We wanted to
yeshiva. During the early ’90s and the years of the Oslo Accords, reach out to people by offering them something deep, by learning
we ran numerous public campaigns to ensure that Chevron would genuine and meaningful Torah with them.
remain under Israeli sovereignty. As I was organizing protests After a few years of following this model, one couple who was
and rallies in the center of Tel Aviv, a thought struck me: Why involved with the organization decided to move to Tel Aviv to begin
are we only doing a campaign like this in Tel Aviv when there is running tefillot and hosting people for Shabbat meals. We were
some kind of political threat? Why don’t we engage with Jews in skeptical, but more people came to the tefillot than had come to the
Tel Aviv all the time?
shiurim, and they were inundated with guests for Shabbat meals.
Political protests are probably the least wholesome way to teach Today, we have nine families living in different neighborhoods of
our Religious Zionist worldview to the broader population. Rather Tel Aviv. Five years ago, we also made the move to Tel Aviv, and
than shouting one-line slogans, wouldn’t it be much better if we hosting people on Shabbat is a core part of what we do.
could build meaningful relationships? And rather than talking Moriah: Each week we host between 20 and 40 people in our
about security concerns, wouldn’t it be better to share our deep home for one of the Shabbat meals, and the other meal is reserved
worldview of Am Yisrael, Torat Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael?!
as family time. On chagim, we can even host 50 people at a meal,
I realized that Tel Aviv is the cultural, academic and economic which is a lot of work, with all the shopping, cooking, hosting and
center of Israel, and the atmosphere there has an impact on the cleaning! We are inspired by the model of Avraham and Sarah,
whole of Israel. Within our Religious Zionist communities we who had an open tent. But there is a lot of work involved and a
would say that the people of Tel Aviv were out of touch, but the constant balancing act; we have to know when to carve out time
truth is, we were out of touch with them! for our children and when to open our home to even more guests.

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