Rabbi Wolf Gold (; Ze'ev Gold, born Zev Krawczynski on May 2, 1889, died 8 April 1956) was a

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 ...

, Jewish activist, and one of the signers of the

Israeli declaration of independence The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708), at the end of the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war phase and ...

Biography

Born in

Szczuczyn Szczuczyn (; ) is a town in Grajewo County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland. As of 2004, it has a population of 3,602. History The town is located in the north-eastern outskirts of Mazovia, which has been part of Poland since the establishment of ...

he was a descendant on his father's side from at least eight generations of rabbis. Gold's first teacher was his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Yehoshuah Goldwasser - a leader in

Hovevei Zion The Lovers of Zion, also ''Hovevei Zion'' () or ''Hibbat Zion'' (, ), were a variety of proto-Zionist organizations founded in 1881 in response to the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire and were officially constituted as a group at a conf ...

. Later he studied at the Mir yeshiva under Rabbi Eliyahu Baruch Kamei. After that he studied in

Lida Lida is a city in Grodno Region, western Belarus, located west of Minsk. It serves as the administrative center of Lida District. As of 2025, it has a population of 103,262. Etymology The name ''Lida'' arises from its Lithuanian name ''Ly ...

at Yeshiva Torah Vo'Da'as, the

yeshiva A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The stu ...

of Rabbi

Yitzchak Yaacov Reines Yitzchak Yaacov Reines (, Isaac Jacob Reines), (October 27, 1839 – August 20, 1915) was a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi and the founder of the Mizrachi Religious Zionist Movement, one of the earliest movements of Religious Zionism, as well as ...

where

Torah study Torah study is the study of the Torah, Hebrew Bible, Talmud, responsa, rabbinic literature, and similar works, all of which are Judaism's Sifrei kodesh, religious texts. According to Rabbinic Judaism, the study is done for the purpose of the ''mi ...

was combined with secular studies. Gold was ordained as a rabbi at the age of 17 by Rabbi Eliezer Rabinowitz of Minsk, and succeeded his father-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Reichler, as rabbi in Juteka. At the age of 18 he moved to the United States, where he served as rabbi in several communities including South Chicago,

Scranton Scranton is a city in and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Scranton is the most populous city in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

(until 1912), Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom in

Williamsburg, Brooklyn Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordered by Greenpoint to the north; Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south; Bushwick and East Williamsburg to the east; and the East River to the west. It was an independe ...

(1912–1919),Sherman, Moshe D. ''Orthodox Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996, p. 78. San Francisco (until 1924) and Congregation Shomrei Emunah of Borough Park, Brooklyn (1928-1935). He was a pioneer in establishing

Orthodox Judaism Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Oral, as literally revelation, revealed by God in Ju ...

in the United States. He founded the Williamsburg Talmud Torah, and in 1917 founded

Yeshiva Torah Vodaas Yeshiva Torah Vodaas (or Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Vodaath or Yeshiva Torah Vodaath or Torah Vodaath Rabbinical Seminary) is a ''yeshiva'' in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. History The yeshiva was conceived in 1917 and formal ...

. He started the Beth Moshe hospital in Bushwick, Brooklyn in 1920. In 1947 Beth Moses merged with Israel Zion Hospital to become Maimonides Hospital) and an orphanage in Brooklyn and also founded a Hebrew teachers training college in San Francisco. In 1914, Rabbi Gold invited Rabbi Meir Berlin, secretary of the World Mizrachi, to come to New York to organize a branch of Mizrachi in the United States. For the next 40 years, Gold traveled in the United States and Canada organizing chapters of the Mizrachi movement and became president of American Mizrachi in 1932. In 1935, he

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

, where he became the head of the Department of Torah Education and Culture in the Diaspora and worked to establish new educational institutions within the Diaspora, especially for North African Jews. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he was involved in the widespread Zionist opposition to the British

White Paper of 1939 The White Paper of 1939Occasionally also known as the MacDonald White Paper (e.g. Caplan, 2015, p.117) after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary, who presided over its creation. was a policy paper issued by the British governmen ...

and worked to rescue European Jewry from the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. In 1943, he traveled to the United States where he participated as a speaker on behalf of European Jewry at the Rabbis' march in Washington. He was a member of the Jewish Agency Executive, heading the Department for Jerusalem Development. He served as Vice-President of the

Provisional State Council The Provisional State Council (, ''Moetzet HaMedina HaZmanit'') was the temporary legislature of Israel from shortly before independence until the election of the first Knesset in January 1949. It took the place of His Majesty's Privy Council, ...

and went on to sign the

in 1948. He served on the founding committee of

Bar-Ilan University Bar-Ilan University (BIU, , ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic university institution. It has 20,000 ...

. On 8 April 1956, Gold died in Jerusalem and was buried near his lifelong friend Rabbi Meir Berlin. Two years after his death in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, a Jewish woman's teacher training seminary was established in the city and named after him;

Machon Gold Machon Gold was an Orthodox Jewish girl's seminary (originally co-ed) founded in 1958 by the Torah Education Department of the World Zionist Organization and named after Rabbi Wolf Gold, one of the signatories of the Israeli declaration of independ ...

.The History of Machon Gold
Machon Gold His grandson, Rabbi Yaakov Katz, is a

Rosh Yeshiva Rosh yeshiva or Rosh Hayeshiva (, plural, pl. , '; Anglicized pl. ''rosh yeshivas'') is the title given to the dean of a yeshiva, a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and th ...

(dean) at

Yeshivat Netiv Aryeh Yeshivat Netiv Aryeh (in Hebrew: ישיבת נתיב אריה) is a Religious Zionist yeshiva located at the Western Wall Plaza in the Old City of Jerusalem. Netiv Aryeh was founded in 2003 by the current rosh yeshiva, Aharon Bina. Avigdor Nebe ...

External links

* *The

Central Zionist Archives Central Zionist Archives (CZA; ) is the official archive of the institutions of the Zionist Movement: the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund, and Keren Hayesod/the United Israel Appeal as well as the archive ...

in Jerusale
site
Office of Rabbi Ze'ev Gold (S58).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gold, Wolf 1889 births 1956 deaths 20th-century Polish rabbis American Orthodox rabbis Israeli Orthodox rabbis Signatories of the Israeli Declaration of Independence Orthodox rabbis in Mandatory Palestine Heads of the Jewish Agency for Israel Mir Yeshiva alumni 20th-century American rabbis People from Grajewo County Immigrants of the Fifth Aliyah

Biography

See also

External links

References