Who exactly were the Hasidic devotees who gave Kfar Hasidim its name? What led them to leave Poland and settle beside the secular Zionist farmers of Nahalal? A Hasidic tale from the Zebulun Valley

Every good story of pioneer Zionism has its share of swamps, malaria, and Arab marauders – and preferably a few of Baron Rothschild’s corrupt clerks thrown in for good measure. The standard elements of an authentic Hasidic tale, on the other hand, are a revered Hasidic master, a bottle of schnapps, and an unexpected stopover due to a cart breakdown. This column, however, is about to deliver a double whammy – an all-in-one account including everything but the Baron’s clerks (whom we’ve recently had enough of anyway).

Kfar Hasidim in the 1930s | Library of Congress collection

The Masters’ Journey

Our tale begins in 1924, when most Jewish immigrants to Mandate Palestine were fleeing Poland’s economic downturn and increasing anti-Semitism. Two Hasidic groups decided independently to join them. Though an American crackdown on immigration had closed the doors of the Goldene Medina to these Hasidim, their somewhat atypical move to the Holy Land was also driven by their charismatic leaders: Rabbi Yisroel Elozor Hopsztajn of Kozienice (Kozhnitz in Yiddish), a sixth-generation descendant of the Maggid of Kozhnitz, for whom he was named; and Rabbi Yehezkel Taub of Jabłonna, descended from Rabbi Yehezkel of Kazimierz Dolny (Kuzmir), whose lineage traced all the way back to the biblical Abraham.

Both rebbes were profoundly influenced by the Zionist teachings of Rabbi Yeshayahu Shapira, brother of the famed Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Piaseczno Rebbe, whose sermons miraculously survived the Warsaw Ghetto. Apart from a genealogy going back to Adam (by way of Rebbe Elimelech of Grodzisk), Rabbi Yeshayahu was distinguished by his fervent Zionism. A disciple of Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, Shapira was even known as the “Pioneer Rebbe” (see “By the By,” p. XX). This mutual mentor persuaded Taub and Hopsztajn that Polish anti-Semitism, already rampant following World War I, would only intensify, and that the Holy Land was a legitimate alternative, even if other strains of ultra-Orthodoxy choked on the word Zionism.

Providentially, the two young leaders found themselves on the same boat to Mandate Palestine, armed with funds from their respective communities and seeking a parcel of land for an agricultural settlement wherever God led them. They decided to join forces, and when their ship docked in Jaffa they both embraced the Pioneer Rebbe, Rabbi Shapira, who’d come from Jerusalem to meet them. Together they hired a wagon and bounced along a dirt path to the foot of the Carmel Mountains and the edge of the Zebulun Valley, reputedly the burial place of the biblical hero Barak, sidekick of Deborah the Prophetess.

Rabbi Yehezkel Taub (left), the Yabloner Rebbe, with his Hasidim

If this were a classic Hasidic tale, the good rabbis would have then crossed the churning Kishon River over a shaky, narrow bridge, only for their cart to break down in a barren field, signifying from Above that this was their destined abode. The trio would have promptly opened a bottle of schnapps and danced wildly under the open sky amid cries of “Le-haim – to life!”

But the official version of the story tells us only that they purchased land from the local effendi – no mention of cart trouble or liquor. Less than a year later, those same Hasidic masters were back in the same spot, surrounded by eighty families of followers. Overcoming their unpleasant first impressions – along with their second and third – the faithful of Kozienice turned to their right and began building the village of Avodat Israel (Labor of Israel), while the Hasidim from Jabłonna took the opposite hill, which they named Nahalat Yaakov (Jacob’s Inheritance).