Avraham Wolfensohn (; 1783–1855) was a Jewish

rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...

, Talmudic judge and leader of the

Ashkenazi Ashkenazi Jews ( ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim) form a distinct subgroup of the Jewish diaspora, that Ethnogenesis, emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium Common era, CE. They traditionally spe ...

community in

Safed Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...

Ottoman Galilee Galilee (; ; ; ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon consisting of two parts: the Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and the Lower Galilee (, ; , ). ''Galilee'' encompasses the area north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge and ...

in the mid-19th century.

Biography

Avraham Wolfensohn was born in

Shklov Shklow is a town in Mogilev Region, Belarus, located north of Mogilev on the Dnieper River. It serves as the administrative center of Shklow District. It has a railway station on the line between Orsha and Mogilev. In 2009, its population was ...

, about 300 kilometers southeast of

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

, where he became a disciple of the

Vilna Gaon Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, ( ''Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman''), also known as the Vilna Gaon ( ''Der Vilner Goen''; ; or Elijah of Vilna, or by his Hebrew acronym Gr"a ("Gaon Rabbenu Eliyahu": "Our great teacher Elijah"; Sialiec, April 23, 172 ...

Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman. The Vilna Gaon's followers were called ''

Perushim The ''perushim'' () were Jewish disciples of the Vilna Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who left Lithuania at the beginning of the 19th century to settle in the Land of Israel, which was then part of Ottoman Syria. They were from the section o ...

'' () and came from the Lithuanian

Mitnagdim ''Misnagdim'' (, "Opponents"; Sephardi pronunciation: ''Mitnagdim''; singular ''misnaged / mitnaged'') was a religious movement among the Jews of Eastern Europe which resisted the rise of Hasidism in the 18th and 19th centuries. The ''Misn ...

community opposed to the

Hasidic Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those aff ...

movement. The Vilna Gaon believed that the return of Jews from the Diaspora to the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...

would bring about the Messianic era. Influenced by the Vilna Gaon's vision, Avraham Wolfensohn founded an organization called ''Chazon Tzion'' ("Prophecy/Vision f

Zion Zion (; ) is a placename in the Tanakh, often used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole. The name is found in 2 Samuel (), one of the books of the Tanakh dated to approximately the mid-6th century BCE. It o ...

"), whose main principles included the ingathering of the Jewish exile.Encyclopedia Lechaluts Hayishuv Uvonav: Demuyot Utemunot'', by David Tidhar (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Rishonim, 1947–1971) In 1809, Avraham Wolfensohn traveled to and settled in the Holy Land as a member of the first of three groups of the Vilna Gaon's disciples. These migrations are considered to be the beginning of the modern return of Jews to their ancient homeland. Included in the groups were members of the Wolfensohn, Ze'ev, Rivlin, Zeitlin and Bassan families— many of the descendants of these disciples became leading figures in modern Israeli society. Their arrival encouraged an

revival in the land which until this time was mostly Sephardi. Facing an Ottoman ban on Ashkenazi Jews settling in Jerusalem, most of the Perushim, including the Wolfensohn family, settled in

, forming the basis of the Ashkenazi community there. Rabbi Avraham Wolfensohn became the first judge of the Perushim in Safed and was instrumental in ending the friction between the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities in the region.

Family

His first marriage to Batya Bryna bore three sons and a daughter. His wife and two of his sons were killed in the great

Galilee earthquake of 1837 The Galilee earthquake of 1837, often called the Safed earthquake, shook the Galilee on January 1 and is one of a number of moderate to large events that have occurred along the Dead Sea Transform fault system that marks the boundary of two tecto ...

, while Avraham was away in Europe collecting funds for the Safed community. His son Ze'ev survived because he was in Jerusalem studying at a yeshiva when the earthquake struck. Avraham Wolfensohn then moved to Jerusalem where he married his second wife, Sheindel, with whom he had four children. As leaders and members of the Perushim community, Rabbi Wolfensohn and his descendants (Wolfensohn, Woolfson, Wolfson, Ze'ev) had a significant influence both on the history of the

Yishuv haYashan The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...

and the subsequent State of Israel, including: * Assisting in the rebuilding of the

Hurva Synagogue The Hurva Synagogue (), also known as Hurvat Rabbi Yehudah he-Hasid (), is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was originally founded in the early 18th century by fol ...

, which had lain in ruin for 140 years. * Settling the new neighborhoods of

Nahalat Shiv'a Nahalat Shiv'a () is a former courtyard neighborhood in Jerusalem. It was the third Jewish neighborhood built outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem in the 1860s. Today it is a crowded pedestrian promenade lined with sidewalk cafes. I ...

and

Mishkenot Sha'ananim Mishkenot Sha'ananim (, ''lit.'' Peaceful Dwellings) was the first Jewish settlement built outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, on a hill directly across Mount Zion. It was built in 1859–1860. This guesthouse was one of the first ...

, the first Jewish areas established outside the old walls of Jerusalem. * Helping to found the Jerusalem neighborhood of

Mea Shearim Mea Shearim (, lit., "hundred gates"; contextually, "a hundred fold", Ashkenazi Hebrew and Yiddish pronunciation: Meye Shorim) is one of the oldest Ashkenazi neighborhoods in Jerusalem outside of the Old City. It is populated by Ashkenazi Hared ...

. * Running the

Moses Montefiore Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, activist, Philanthropy, philanthropist and Sheriffs of the City of London, Sheriff of London. Born to an History ...

windmill in Jerusalem. * Helping to found Bikur Holim Hospital, the first Jewish hospital in Jerusalem. * Founding the first Jewish pharmacy in Palestine (Yehoshua Wolfinsohn, 1851–1924)Founders Memorial Museum of Petah Tikva (Yad Lebanim). * Pioneering the printing industry in Palestine—including the production of the first Bible printed entirely by Jews in Palestine. * Establishing the first institution for blind education in Palestine. * Involvement in Civic Leadership (Mordechai "Max" Woolfson, 1900–1978—Town Clerk,

Petah Tikva Petah Tikva (, ), also spelt Petah Tiqwa and known informally as Em HaMoshavot (), is a city in the Central District (Israel), Central District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv. It was founded in 1878, mainly by Haredi Judaism, Haredi Jews of the Old Y ...

). Most of Avraham Wolfensohn's writings were on religious subjects and were destroyed in the earthquake in 1837. Only one of his manuscripts was saved, and was published after his death. Written mainly in Aramaic, the book contains a short description of Avraham Wolfensohn's life. There are few copies in existence, but one is known to be in the Sde Boker library of

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

, the late prime minister of Israel. Avraham Wolfensohn died in 1855 and is buried in the old cemetery in the Kidron Valley near Yad Avshalom.

References

* Morgenstern, Arie: '' Hastening Redemption: Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel'' Published in Hebrew, 1997, Jerusalem, Ma'or; Published in English, 2006, Oxford University Press. * ''

Encyclopedia Judaica The ''Encyclopaedia Judaica'' is a multi-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people, Judaism, and Israel. It covers diverse areas of the Jewish world and civilization, including Jewish history of all eras, culture, Jewish holida ...

'', Ya'ari, Avraham
Talmidei Hagra Vehishtarshutam Ba'aretz
* Berman, S. ''Mishpakhot K"K Shklov''. Shklov, 1936. (H) {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfensohn, Avraham 1783 births 1855 deaths 19th-century rabbis from the Ottoman Empire Ashkenazi Jews from the Ottoman Empire Zionists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the Ottoman Empire People from Shklow Rabbis in Safed Rabbis in Ottoman Galilee Shelichei derabonan (rabbis)