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Because this blog often refers to the incident described below, I decided to extract it from the original post, clean it up, and add details for clarification.
Hope you'll enjoy reading the true history...
(Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld also noted that as a good point of Ben-Yehudah, even as the rav fought against Ben-Yehudah's many faults.)
Yet unheroically, Ben-Yehudah also created great problems — not only for religious Jews in Eretz Yisrael, but for all Jews living in Eretz Yisrael...and even throughout the Ottoman Empire.
The much-lauded hero of the Tziyonim ultimately ended up endangering every single Jew living under the rule of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
To give you an idea of what that meant, that era of the Ottoman Empire included the following countries:
- Eretz Yisrael
- Turkey
- Iraq
- Syria
- Lebanon
- Jordan
- Much of Saudi Arabia
Remember, most of those countries had thriving Sephardi Jewish communities at that time.
What did Ben-Yehudah do to threaten their stability?
Secular Jewish Nationalism Resulted in Obstructions against Jewish Aliyah & Diminished Living Standards for Jews Already Living in Eretz Yisrael – Remedied Only by the Intervention of the Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis
This followed on the heels of previous incitement by secular Marxists, which made the Turkish authorities feel threatened by Jewish aliyah.
For example, while religious Jews have always either remained in or returned to Eretz Yisrael since the last Destruction of the Beit HaMikdash in 73 C.E., it was the new nationalist movement fomented by secular Marxist Jews that caused the Turkish rulers to ban Jewish immigration in 1884.
(Please note the contradiction of a movement to return Jews to Eretz Yisrael resulting in the obstruction of Jews returning to Eretz Yisrael. The Torah Sages in Eretz Yisrael always sought to deal with the authorities in a way that would INCREASE Jewish aliyah, not decrease it.)
Along these lines, the Ottoman authorities issued decrees prohibiting Jews from outside of Eretz Yisrael to buy land or housing in Eretz Yisrael, and forbade Jewish visitors from staying in Eretz Yisrael more than 30 days.
When one Jew tried to go around the prohibition against buying property, the Turkish authorities expanded the decrees to ban home repairs — like fixing leaky roofs.
So all in all, this secular nationalist activity not only impeded Jewish aliyah, but also increased the deprivations of Jews already settled in the Holy Land.
In fact, the famed tzaddik, Rav Shmuel Salant, tried intervening with the Turkish governor to allow Jewish aliyah, but the governor responded by citing the many revolutionary articles published in the secular Marxist Jewish newspapers of Eastern Europe.
This knowledge maintained a state of wariness and distrust among Turkish authorities against the Jews in Eretz Yisrael.
It was only with great effort that Rav Salant was able to convince the Turks to re-open Jewish immigration.
(Yes, the leading Torah Sage, the much maligned ultra-Orthodox Jew. NOT the Tziyonim, and not the secular anti-Torah Marxist revolutionaries, as falsely promoted in history books. Just the Gadol HaDor himself.)
Until 1895, Rav Salant managed to convince the Turkish authorities that the rabid articles in the secular European press did not represent the peaceful Jews who only wished to cultivate the land of Eretz Yisrael.
But when Ben-Yehudah published the inflammatory article in Eretz Yisrael, the Turkish authorities felt threatened within their own empire.
And that's when Rav Salant convened an emergency meeting with the rabbinical and community leaders of Yerushalayim, including Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld.
How the Leading Torah Sages Saved the Day
It was actually the “ultra”-Orthodox Jewish Sages who came to (or were born in) Eretz Yisrael, these same pious Sages who already lived in Eretz Yisrael and did everything they could to keep the borders open for the aliyah of their fellow Jews.
The secular Leftists in Eastern Europe who later (in 1890, to be exact) called themselves “Zionists” and embraced Communism were the ones who actually provoked the bans on aliyah and stunted Jewish immigration to Eretz Yisrael.
But you’ll never hear that outside the frum community because the secular narrative always frames the Torah-observant Jews as the bad guys, while depicting the assimilated “progressive” Jews as the heroes.
Anyway, during the emergency meeting, Rav Sonnenfeld advised turning to Eretz Yisrael's Sephardi Chief Rabbi of that time: Rav Yaakov Shaul Elyashar for assistance.
Why?
Due to all the nationalist revolution-mongering sentiment bubbling out of secular Jewish Europe, the Turks lost their trust of Ashkenazi Jews (although Rav Salant himself still maintained some influence).
Because the Sephardi Jews under their reign never agitated against them, they still trusted the Sephardi Jews.
Along these lines, Rav Sonnenfeld recommended that Rav Salant and the Ashkenazi rabbinical court proclaim their support of the Sephardi Rav Elyashar — to which Rav Salant and the other Ashkenazi rabbis immediately agreed.
The Ashkenazi Torah Sages sent a rabbinical emissary to this Sephardi Sage Rav Elyashar with a copy of the incriminating article.
Ben-Yehudah’s inflammatory article ignited Rav Elyashar's anger as the rav realized the sudden danger hanging over hundreds of thousands of his beloved Jewish brethren.
Rav Elyashar immediately instructed the emissary to send a irrefutable message to the Turkish authorities to of the community's blanket rejection the article's ideas, asserting that such ideas did not reflect the Jewish community at large.
This showed Divine-assisted foresight because at that moment, news of the article reached the seat of the empire in Constantinople, which resulted in the Sultan himself summoning the Torah Sage of Turkey, Rav Moshe HaLevi.
The advisers to the Sultan recommended harsh measures against the Jews.
In fact, unbeknownst to any of the Jews (including these great Sages), the Turkish council decided to expel ALL Jews from the ENTIRE Ottoman empire!
(According to what I could glean of the number of Jews in the Ottoman Empire at that time, this included around a million Jews.)
Needless to say, this would have been a terrible catastrophe for Sephardi Jewry, with nowhere to go — and the Jews of Eretz Yisrael included in this expulsion!
Fortunately, the Sultan greatly esteemed Rav Yaakov Shaul Elyashar & Rav Shmuel Salant (two of the leading Sephardi & Ashkenazi authorities in Eretz Yisrael at that time). So the Sultan first wished to hear from these two great Sages.
In his name & the name of Rav Shmuel Salant, Rav Elyashar dictated to Rav Yosef Rivlin a response to the Sultan. Rav Rivlin then sent this response to Rav Moshe HaLevi in Turkey.
Admirably, the response was straight-forward & unapologetic about the innate Jewish yearning for the re-establishment of Tzion & Yerushalayim.
At the same time, it asserted this fundamental Torah concept in an appealing & non-threatening manner.
The great Sage emphasized the Jewish yearning to return to Yerushalayim & live under their own king, but emphasized how the Jews pray for God to bring this about. The reply also reassured the Sultan that Jews are commanded to pray for the welfare of whatever kingdom they live in, and they certainly pray for the welfare of the Turkish empire.
This communiqué signed by the 2 great Sages of Eretz Yisrael made the Sultan free to refuse to issue the planned decree of expulsion against the Jews in his empire.
Interestingly, this communiqué also saved Ben-Yehudah, against whom the Turks wanted to retaliate.
After all, they assumed Ben-Yehudah plotted to overthrow the Turkish government.
Yet the rabbinical communiqué convinced the Turkish authorities that despite what the article seemed to infer, Ben-Yehudah did not actually want to overthrow the regime.
Instead, the Turks sentenced Ben-Yehudah to 1 year in prison (which is still pretty bad, considering the Turkish prisons of that time) — but even that sentence was suspended.
Yet how was this tremendous salvation reported by the agitating anti-Torah revolutionaries in Europe?
Negatively!
Unbelievably, the secular Jewish newspaper in Warsaw, HaTzefira, condemned these heroic efforts of the Gedolei Hador as “mesirah”—informing on fellow Jews to the non-Jewish authorities!
It bears emphasizing again:
The Turkish authorities already knew about the article. It wasn't the Sages who brought it to their attention. If there was any mesirah here, it was committed by Ben-Yehudah and the irresponsible publishers of these articles. And anyway, this wasn't the only article that worried the Turks; this had been going on for a while.
To Sum It All Up in a Nutshell...
The secular Marxist revolutionaries incited the Turkish authorities to:
- increase deprivations and discrimination against Jews already living in Eretz Yisrael.
- prevent further immigration of Jews to Eretz Yisrael.
- came within a hairsbreadth of not only expelling the entire Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael, but throughout the entire empire.
- threaten the life of Ben-Yehudah himself.
As you likely noticed, the above results are the OPPOSITE of what Tziyonut actually promises.
The above results are also the opposite of what the current Medinah claims as its goals for the Jewish people.
Remember: The revolutionaries who agitated for a SECULAR MARXIST state under the auspices of making a safe haven for Jews actually succeeding in doing the exact opposite.
(And they continue to do so until today.)
Throughout the anti-Torah Marxist agitations and incitement, the leading Torah Sages continuously intervened on behalf of Am Yisrael, doing everything possible to:
- ease conditions for suffering Jews within Eretz Yisrael.
- increase the immigration of Jews to Eretz Yisrael.
- prevent a region-wide expulsion of Jews — including overturning the expulsion of Jews from Eretz Yisrael, which would've made Eretz Yisrael Judenrein, something which the Temple Destructions didn't even achieve!
- saved the life of Ben-Yehudah (a fact he and his comrades refused to ever acknowledge, let alone show gratitude).
Ben-Yehudah came away from the precipice of disaster acting like a hero who bravely inserted his head into the mouth of a lion, then extracted himself unscathed — all to due to his own wits.
In reality, he acted rashly with little concern for the consequences, whether for himself or for the lives of a million other Jews.
Really, it was the very rabbis he despised and sought to destroy who saved his life and the lives of Jews throughout the empire.
Yet secular history books continue to promote the lie of these secular Marxist agitators as the true settlers and liberators of the Jewish people — when it was always the Torah Jews who settled the Land and did everything they could to liberate their fellow Jews from the yoke of foreign masters.