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Pre-state of Israel

Greatness in Store – Gittel Dinowitz

Tamar HaYardeni

Very few know anything about her, and even the street sign bearing her name says precious little. Yet Gittel Dinowitz was a pillar of pre-state Jerusalem’s Old City, her leadership growing out of the store...

20th centuryArticlesIsrael's warsIssue 68 | March 2024JerusalemPre-state of IsraelWritersZionism

Tale of a Trail | Sa’ad

Tamar HaYardeni

The founders of Kibbutz Sa’ad (literally, “Aid”) didn’t choose that name, but the establishment of this collective between Gaza and Beersheba in 1947 certainly aided in the Negev’s inclusion in the Jewish state Tamar HaYardeni...

ColumnsHistoric Walks in IsraelIssue 67 | December 2023Land of IsraelPre-state of Israel

With All Their Might – Kibbutz Ovadia in Slawków

Yochanan Ben-Yaacov

Kibbutz Ovadia’s unique blend of “Torah and Avoda,” learning and labor, served as a model for religious kibbutzim forming in prestate Israel and beyond – but the demands of this Polish Jewish collective experiment took...

ArticlesIssue 67 | December 2023PioneersPolandPre-state of IsraelZionism

Singlehanded – Yosef Trumpeldor

Amit Assis

Though most famous as the one-armed defender of Tel Hai, Yosef Trumpeldor was also a Russian patriot, dentist, and pre-kibbutz pioneer of agricultural collectives in the land of Israel. He also cofounded the Jewish Legion,...

ArticlesIssue 67 | December 2023Land of IsraelPioneersPre-state of IsraelZionism

Shtetl at Sea – Knesset Israel Illegal Immigration Ship

Mordechay Saar Marmorstein

The SS Knesset Israel set sail to break the British blockade barring Holocaust survivors from the land of Israel. Packed with young and old from all walks of life, this floating shtetl defied His Majesty’s...

ArticlesEuropeIssue 67 | December 2023Pre-state of IsraelZionism

Voices of the Past | Hadassah Kaplan

Hadassah Kaplan

Hadassah Kaplan wrote the following letter to her father in Hebrew during her stay in Jerusalem in 1933, in response to his question of whether she recommended his relocating there Hadassah Kaplan Dear Father, When...

ColumnsIssue 73 | June 2025JerusalemPre-state of IsraelWomen

Book Review | Promised Lands

Sara Jo Ben-Zvi

Sara Jo Ben-Zvi Promised LandsHadassah Kaplan and the Legacy of American Jewish Women in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine Sharon Ann Musher New York University, 2025, 261 pages Sharon Ann Musher’s detailed analysis of her grandmother’s...

ColumnsIssue 73 | June 2025Land of IsraelPre-state of IsraelReviews>Book Reviews

Reconstructing Hadassah – Hadassah Kaplan

Sharon Ann Musher

How were the feminist and Zionist aspects of Reconstructionist Judaism influenced by founder Mordecai Kaplan’s experience of raising four daughters? And when the second, Hadassah, spent a year in British Mandate Palestine, how did her...

ArticlesIssue 73 | June 2025JerusalemPre-state of IsraelWomen

Breakthrough to the Negev – Jewish Settlement of the Negev

Dotan Goren

At the end of the 1930s, the land of Israel’s parched south was devoid of Jewish settlement. In the decade leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel, however, the region suddenly boomed,...

ArticlesIssue 70 | September 2024Land of IsraelPre-state of IsraelZionism

Tale of a Trail | Kibbutz Gesher

Tamar HaYardeni

Three bridges, one Arab village, three Jewish settlements, a railway station, and a hydroelectric plant. How did a single bend in the River Jordan generate so much activity? Tamar HaYardeni Where To? Kibbutz GesherRestored site...

ColumnsHistoric Walks in IsraelIssue 71 | December 2024Land of IsraelPre-state of Israel

A Day at the Museum | Bialik Square

Sara Jo Ben-Zvi

A nostalgic, European-style city square has been renovated once again, this time commemorating a century since Hayim Nahman Bialik’s arrival in Tel Aviv Sara Jo Ben-Zvi Bialik Square is one of Tel Aviv’s oldest public...

ColumnsIssue 69 | June 2024Literature and CulturePre-state of IsraelTel Aviv

Pre-state of Israel

Greatness in Store – Gittel Dinowitz

Tale of a Trail | Sa’ad

With All Their Might – Kibbutz Ovadia in Slawków

Singlehanded – Yosef Trumpeldor

Shtetl at Sea – Knesset Israel Illegal Immigration Ship

Voices of the Past | Hadassah Kaplan

Book Review | Promised Lands

Reconstructing Hadassah – Hadassah Kaplan

Breakthrough to the Negev – Jewish Settlement of the Negev

Tale of a Trail | Kibbutz Gesher

A Day at the Museum | Bialik Square

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Pre-state of Israel

Greatness in Store – Gittel Dinowitz

Tale of a Trail | Sa’ad

With All Their Might – Kibbutz Ovadia in Slawków

Singlehanded – Yosef Trumpeldor

Shtetl at Sea – Knesset Israel Illegal Immigration Ship

Voices of the Past | Hadassah Kaplan

Book Review | Promised Lands

Reconstructing Hadassah – Hadassah Kaplan

Breakthrough to the Negev – Jewish Settlement of the Negev

Tale of a Trail | Kibbutz Gesher

A Day at the Museum | Bialik Square

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