JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

en-zvi, izhak
where he participated in the clandestine activities of the central
committee of Po’alei Zion. He traveled to Germany, Austria,
and Switzerland to try to influence Jewish students there.
In Vienna he organized the first ties between Po’alei Zion
branches in different countries. At the end of 1906 he returned
to Vilna, which, after Borochov’s imprisonment, had become
the center of the movement.
Ben-Zvi settled in Ereẓ Israel at the beginning of 1907. In
the same year he was a Po’alei Zion delegate from Ereẓ Israel
to the Eighth Zionist Congress held in The Hague. He participated
in the founding of the Bar Giora organization in Jaffa
in 1907, and in 1909 of *Ha-Shomer, along with Raḥel Yanait
(*Ben-Zvi), who had settled in Ereẓ Israel in 1908, and was to
become his wife in 1918.
After the second Turkish revolution (1909), Ben-Zvi traveled
to Turkey on behalf of Po’alei Zion. He visited Smyrna,
Constantinople, and Salonika, as well as Beirut and Damascus,
establishing ties with the Jewish communities and leaders. In
Salonika he first encountered the remnants of the Shabbatean
sect, later to become a subject for his research.
In 1910 Ben-Zvi, together with Raḥel Yanait, Ze’ev Ashur,
and others, founded the first Hebrew socialist periodical in
Ereẓ Israel, Aḥdut (“Unity”). Upon the outbreak of World
War I, Ben-Zvi interrupted his studies at the University of
Constantinople and returned to Ereẓ Israel. During the persecution
of Jews by Jamal Pasha, the Ottoman governor, Aḥdut
was closed down, and Ben-Zvi, together with David *Ben-
Gurion, was imprisoned. They were both deported, and eventually
made their way to New York. There they founded in 1915
the He-Ḥalutz movement of America.
Before the British offensive on the Palestine front, Ben-
Gurion and Ben-Zvi initiated a volunteer movement for Jewish
battalions in the U.S., and were among the first volunteers.
They arrived in Egypt in 1918, and from there they went
to Ereẓ Israel as soldiers of the *Jewish Legion in the British
Royal Fusiliers. During the disturbances of 1920, 1922, and
1929, Ben-Zvi was active in the ranks of the *Haganah, while
also representing the Yishuv in negotiations with the British
authorities.
He was elected to the Central Committee of the *Aḥdut
ha-Avodah Party at its founding convention. During the summer
of 1920 he participated in the world conference of Po’alei
Zion held in Vienna, in which the movement split under the
impact of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Ben-Zvi was instrumental
in its reorganization on a firm Zionist platform.
In October 1920 he was appointed by the British High
Commissioner to Palestine, Sir Herbert *Samuel, to the Palestine
Advisory Council. But with the Jaffa riots of May 1921
and the subsequent temporary suspension of Jewish immigration,
he resigned from the Council in protest against Mandatory
government policy.
Ben-Zvi was elected to the Secretariat of the *Histadrut
when it was founded in 1920. He devoted a considerable part
of his public activity to Jerusalem and its Jewish population.
He was first elected to the Jerusalem Municipal Council in
1927, but after the riots of 1929 he resigned from the municipality
in protest against the stand of the city’s Arab administration.
In September 1934 he was reelected to the municipality.
In 1920 Ben-Zvi was elected to the Va’ad Le’ummi, first
as a member, then in 1931 as its chairman, and in 1945 as its
president. He participated as a delegate in all the Zionist
Congresses during the 1920s, and as chairman of the Va’ad
Le’ummi he represented the Yishuv at the coronation ceremonies
of King George VI in 1937, and at the Round Table Conference
on Palestine in London in 1939.
After the establishment of the State of Israel, Ben-Zvi was
elected as a *Mapai member to the First and Second Knessets.
Upon the death of President Chaim *Weizmann in 1952, he
was elected president of the State. He was elected to a second
term in 1957, and to a third term in 1962. He died in office on
April 23, 1963.
Ben-Zvi headed the Institute for the Study of Oriental
Jewish Communities in the Middle East, which he founded
in 1948, and which was renamed the Ben-Zvi Institute in 1952.
His research on the history of the people of Israel was a lifelong
endeavor. The scholarly works that he published were
devoted mainly to research on communities and sects (such
as the Samaritans, Karaites, Shabbateans, Jewish communities
in Asia and Africa, the mountain Jews, and others) and
to the geography of Ereẓ Israel, its ancient populations, its
antiquities, and its traditions. He was also a prolific journalist,
publishing articles under his own name as well as under
various pseudonyms.
His brochure Ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi bi-Kefar Peki’in (“The
Jewish Yishuv in Peki’in Village,” 1922) was the beginning of
series of studies on the Jewish villages in Ereẓ Israel that preceded
modern Jewish settlement, most of which were included
in his book She’ar Yishuv (“The Remnant of the Yishuv,” 1927)
and in vol. 2 of his writings. His studies of communities were
greatly facilitated by his direct contact with the subjects and
by their willingness to reveal historical documents previously
unpublished. Ben-Zvi’s collected surveys on the non-Jewish
communities of Israel appear in Ukhlusei Arẓenu (“Populations
in our Land,” 1932), which, together with his book on the
Jewish population of Israel, Ukhloseinu ba-Areẓ (“Our Population
in the Land,” 1929), is included in vol. 5 of his writings
(1937). His studies on the history of the Samaritans, Sefer ha-
Shomeronim (1935, and new enlarged edition 1970), is a basic
work. Ben-Zvi also published Masot Ereẓ Israel le-Rav Moshe
Basola (“Journeys of R. Moses Basola in Ereẓ Israel”), based
on an original manuscript. This study, he believed, had enabled
him to identify the unknown traveller in the Masot ha-
Nose’a ha-Almoni mi-Livorno mi-Shenat Resh Peh Bet (“Journeys
of an Unknown Traveler from Leghorn, from the Year
1521/22”). His book Niddeḥei Yisrael was translated into English
(The Exiled and the Redeemed, 1958 and 1961), Spanish,
French, Italian, Swedish, and Yiddish. The most important of
his many studies on the history of the yishuv is Ereẓ Yisrael
ve-Yishuvah bi-Ymei ha-Shilton ha-Ottomani (“Ereẓ Israel and
394 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3