[Page 159]

One morning during the summer vacation [of the year] [5]694 (1934), I was informed by the administration of the high school at which I studied that I was to travel to a certain place in order to meet there with someone by the name of Dr. Holzberg, who in the future would be the vice principal.^[1] He wanted to meet the students of the institution where he would be working.

This was something unusual, even in those days, wherein a new teacher would devote his summer vacation to getting to know his future students. But in regard to Dr. Holzberg I was not surprised. I had already heard that an interesting vice principal was due to arrive at our school: God-fearing, an accomplished man of science, and an exemplary teacher, and above all, a man of principle. This combination of piety and scientific learning was not something frequently seen among the inhabitants of the Yishuv^[2] during those years. Certainly, we knew of some German Jews who had combined faith and wisdom, but this individual—they'd already said—was a Lithuanian, through and through. And at that time, a Lithuanian, if he was a mathematician, stood a good chance of being an atheist. From a Lithuanian who was both God-fearing and greatly knowledgeable in the sciences it was possible to expect this oddness—that he would devote his vacation to getting to know his future students.

The meeting was in Dr. Holzberg's apartment. I was ready for a conversation in which he would attempt to discern [the extent of] my knowledge of mathematics, and I feared this since mathematics was my weak point. But here was an additional surprise. We conversed about mathematics, of course, but we also drifted into Greek history, French literature and Hebrew, and in each subject Dr. Holzberg's mastery of it revealed itself. My [view of the] world was then divided into the humanities and the hard sciences. I saw myself as belonging to the humanities and I had pegged Dr. Holzberg as belonging in the hard sciences. But here again I was baffled. He fluently recited poems in Greek and Latin, and revealed an expertise in German and French literature in their original [languages]. So, what was he then? A humanist or a man of science?

Well, I told myself, he was a man of Enlightenment in general, and that satisfied me. I had found a suitable box to place him in. But again, he eluded my attempts at pigeon-holing him when he began to speak with me about Torah study and revealed his deep knowledge of this subject as well.

I left there with a peculiar feeling: [this was] an extraordinary man; he knows everything. But he wasn't just learned, but sharp. One couldn't help but be impressed by his precision of his speech, of the clarity of his thought, and his astonishing analytical abilities. The category I finally found in which to place him was: a man of immense intellectual abilities.

[It was] the beginning of the school year. I was beginning my 10^th/sophomore year, and while I had good marks in the fields of Judaism and the Humanities, I was quite weak in Mathematics and the Natural Sciences. This [situation] had dogged me since 1^st grade. I didn't like math—or more correctly: I hated math, and everything related to it. The new mathematics teacher was Dr. Holzberg, which was more than a little uncomfortable: my disgrace would soon become known to him.

He entered the classroom on the first day and made several announcements: he would be our new teacher. He would also teach us Torah.

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He also invited us to a literature circle that would take place each week at his home. We would start with Vladimir Korolenko's work, “The Blind Musician”.^[3] A strange introduction for a course on mathematics. I had never heard a combination like this before: a mathematics and Torah teacher arranging a literary circle. And at his home, no less, and in the evening. In truth, all of our teachers at that time were hardworking and devoted, but not to that extent. I simply could not find a mental framework that would contain him—was it only immense intellectual abilities? What about his sense of devotion? As time went on, each framework that I created for him was shattered, one after the other, and I had to keep adding to the picture: his sense of responsibility and devotion, his truthfulness/authenticity (midat emet).

Other surprising characteristics gradually came to light: below the surface of the cool Lithuanian and precise mathematician was hidden a struggling and sensitive heart. At that same literature seminar you would suddenly discover his sensitivity to beauty, the intense flame of his faith. You would also sense a hidden love for his students. He was prepared to invest great personal effort and labor in order to advance them. And this is what happened to me. I, who had left in my wake a long trail of failure in the study of mathematics, would finish the school year as a good student in the hard sciences and in a state of identity crisis: what was I after all, a humanist or a man of science?

But I was saved from another identity crisis. This was a difficult period of internal doubt for me; I was struggling at that time with my faith. It wasn't easy to remain a religious youth in Tel Aviv at that time. I went about with the feeling that I belonged to the last generation of believers, and all of us would be carried away by some irresistible force toward disbelief (kfirah). It was a sense of impending fate. We saw it as the way of the world: we start out on the path as religious children and continue upon it as secular ones. We didn't believe that we could escape this fate. Our surroundings pulled at us, provoked us, tempted us. The surrounding world was impressive, and, most important: convincing. And while you held fast to your faith, each day your grip grew weaker. You couldn't resist that voice that whispered in your ear: your desire to believe was nothing more than a pointless sentimentality, but the truth is there. I underwent many difficult days of internal struggle, days in which I saw the abyss opening before me and I couldn't help but continue toward it. The fear in my heart turned my days into hell.

And then there were the mathematics classes of Dr. Holzberg. These were true “lessons of an educator”. With a faithful hand he leads his pupil (bano) thus: that the axiomatic structure of the logic is set before our eyes with clarity, slowly and gradually he accustoms us to seek out the assumption/premise hidden within every rule (mishpat) upon which it is built. In this manner we grow accustomed to step back until we arrive at the foundational premise. We begin to understand that even atheism is like a faith/belief, nothing more, in fact, than an unproven faith. We begin to understand that human understanding alone cannot decide between different axiomatic systems. And I begin to sense that forces pulling at me from without no longer represent absolute truth. I am at this point able to look courageously into the abyss without being awed at its depth. One identity crisis solved - I now know: I am a religious youth, and even if I am the only religious youth in all of Tel Aviv I shall not be pulled along by the current. There will be days in which I shall stand before difficult tests [of my faith], when I will be the only religious [person] within a secular society, whether before disparaging lecturers or students at the university, or before laughing commanders and colleagues at an army officers' course, or in many, many other instances, [but at those times] I will always come back to Dr. Holzberg's mathematics lessons and will draw from them strength and spiritual force to withstand each one of those same protracted arguments (vikukhim memushakhim) with peace of mind and a sense of inner confidence.

I finish high school and my connection with Dr. Holzberg, [but] the sense of esteem and love that connected us is not broken. Many years have passed, and my path leads me into the field of education without any preparation. I am a “teacher without certification”, one who hasn't studied in a [training] course but who, by the circumstances of the time, has become the founder and director of a religious school in Tel Aviv's Skhunat HaTikvah neighborbood^[4] (at that time, the Talmud Torah “HaTikvah”, and now known as “Emanuel” School). I don't have any knowledge of pedagogy, and no experience. Of course, I am a terrible teacher. But to my good fortune, it is Dr. Holzberg who comes to visit my lessons as an educational supervisor. And naturally, the lesson I give is terrible. So bad, in fact, that I wasn't even aware of the fact that it was awful—that was how bad my teaching was. Dr. Holzberg invited me to his office for a conversation. Even though I had been his student in the past, he “chafes” against me. He analyzes my lesson and peels away every outer layer to reveal the essence. He examines together with me each sentence/rule in my lesson, and in the reflection I see my lesson: where I erred here, and why it wasn't a good idea to ask in such a fashion, and why it would have been better

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to change the order of things, and how I erred in this explanation and that.

I left there a different person—my eyes had been suddenly opened to see that pedagogy was a science, and it had a beauty, and it had a profundity, and I was reminded of the enchanting mathematics lessons. I began to understand what a pedagogic consideration was, and the way in which one had to think in preparing a lesson. Things began to be interesting and attractive, and the preparation for each lesson becomes for me a stimulating and exciting challenge. And again, I sensed just what a debt of gratitude I felt toward my teacher and supervisor, who opened up new vistas before me.

Time passed. That was a difficult period for Hebrew education in the Land [of Israel]. Farrell,^[5] the same bitter foe who stood at the head of the Department of Education during the Mandate Government, is trying to hinder the progress of Hebrew education. They would say at that time that it is permissible to cancel/ignore (lebatel) a severe ruling, and what does the “Department” (of Education of the National Council, the then-“Ministry of Education” of the Jewish Yishuv) do? They send Dr. Holzberg to Farrell. This Farrell had a weakness—he loved to compose poems in Greek and Latin, and when he would struggle to find a rhyme for a Greek or Latin word he would fume, and then direct his rage at us. And who better to immediately supply him with a rhyming word than Dr. Holzberg? At which point he would calm down and respond [more amenably] to the demands of the Yishuv.

The State was born and it already has a Ministry of Education. I gain employment as a supervisor in the sector of the chief supervisor of Mizrahi,^[6] Dr. Holzberg, who had [by then] changed his name to Eztion. At this point the happy days have returned to me, [days] in which I could increase my learning and to drink deeply from the well of [knowledge that was] every conversation with him.

State education arrived, and I was excited and amazed at the discovery of the greatness of spirit that I had not known to be in him [as] a brother and a friend. These were the difficult days for the religious educator, after the [period of the] “warring camps”^[7] and Dr. Etzion managed an immense system [of education] over the souls of the immigrants' children, a time of inflamed passions and burning resentments. And when the [division of] “state religious” education arose, it was “punished”. What naturally should have been done, was not: Dr. Etzion was not appointed as director of the branch of religious education. Upon Dr. Etzion's advice Y. Goldschmidt was appointed to such; up to that point he had been one of the supervisors for the Mizrahi [movement]. Dr. Eztion was designated to be an ordinary supervisor for the Tel Aviv district. This was a most embarrassing situation. We saw in our imaginations [the biblical] Moses when he needed to submit to Joshua and could not bring himself to do it. With trepidation we awaited the first meeting of the supervisors of the religious education branch,

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when Dr. Etzion and Mr. Goldschmidt would change seats. I shall never forget that gathering [and] what greatness of spirit and gentility both of them showed. I saw how much these two struggled to make it easier on one another. For a full year I saw the different aspects of Dr. Etzion's character in all their glory. It was only a profound religious reverence that allowed this to be witnessed. For Dr. Etzion, this was all simply a means to the noble cause: turning the hearts of the children of Israel toward their Father in Heaven. Before this goal all normal human desires were dwarfed, and he rejoiced over the fact that he could now serve [the cause of] Holiness in the best possible way in a new situation. This was a great and wondrous drama of devotion, a discarding of all personal connection, a rising above all human weakness, and an expression of good intention toward he who only yesterday was subordinate to him and with whom he had now to switch roles. And this occurred before my eyes, and before the eyes of all those who were witnesses thereto; such moments simply must be witnessed.^[8]

Many years have passed since then, and Dr. Etzion has long since retired. But I continue to be his student, not only by virtue of those days, but each time I draw from his teaching. He writes books and articles on pedagogy, in contemplation and interpretation, and everything he wrote there bears the wisdom of the elders and the fervor and agitation (matsis) of youth. And every visit to him was a pleasure, and every conversation with him was an enrichment of the soul that sustained one for long thereafter.

And when I look around and see the great and illustrious “camp” of religious educators, and the religious youth, and when a sense of calm satisfaction (hanaha) spreads over my heart, I say to myself: We have all arrived [at this point] by virtue of Dr. Etzion.

Many years have passed and we remain accompanied by the nagging sense: who else is as worthy of the Israel Prize in Education as Dr. Etzion, who forged new paths in education, who deepened educational thinking, whose books and articles in Didactics are exemplary works in their profundity, in their analytical quality and their clarity of expression, that they are spread across and through every subject, from teaching Torah to teaching mathematics and the natural sciences? He who has become exalted as a giant among many fields, will have to wait until the evening of his years so that we might be fortunate enough to see him trod, with failing steps, up to the stage, supported by the usher, as he receives the Israel Prize in Education. And we feel that the mistake will be hereby corrected, but late [in coming].

And afterward – the end. Dr. Etzion is no longer with us. And for us, his students who now lack his conversation, his guidance, the flash of his sharp and mischievous eye, and sometimes, when he would analyze our methods. We are left only with his teaching, the Torah of God, complete and whole: “There was no conflict between his teaching of the word of God in his books and the actions of God in the world”. We are left only with his teaching, the pure and whole Torah of God: full of pure and innocent faith, a profound faith he acquired, without a doubt—complete.

Translator's footnotes:

1. Alternatively: Assistant Director (sgan menahel) Return
2. The Jewish settlement in Israel/Palestine in the pre-independence period Return
3. The Hebrew actually reads “The Blind Gardener”, but this is likely a typo (ganan instead of nagan). Return
4. Skhunat Hatikvah in Tel Aviv's grittier southeast was historically (and certainly at the time of these events) an impoverished, working class neighborhood. Return
5. Wilfred Jerome Farrell, who served under Humphrey Bowman as assistant director of education during the middle years of the British Mandate, would succeed his boss upon the latter's retirement in 1936 and hold the post until 1946. Unlike his predecessor, Farrell was caustic, imperious, and considered largely devoid of sympathy or understanding for the aspirations or needs of either his Jewish or Arab concerns. Return
6. A contraction of Merkaz Ruchani (“religious center”), it is a religious Zionist organization (est. Vilnius, 1902) that believes that the Jewish national movement should be centered around Orthodox Judaism. Its most prominent figure was Rabbi Abraham Kook, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi during the British Mandate. During the post-independence period it was the basis of the National Religious Party, whose members tended to control the Ministry of Religious Affairs for decades. Return
7. After the Israeli War for Independence (1947-49) the country established mandatory public education (through age 14) for all citizens, but allowed for several different, largely independent organizations (based on the different ideological, ethnic, and religious streams) to oversee it (i.e., state-sponsored Labor Zionism, Religious Zionism, ultra-Orthodox Judaism, etc.) and there was fierce competition between them for the children of Jewish immigrants from the Arab/Muslim world that flooded into the country after independence. Return
8. The Hebrew phrase: le'siim ein heker is difficult to interpret, but seems to imply that peak moments like this cannot be understood after the fact. Return

[Page 163]

Dr. Itzhak Rafael HaLevi Etzion departed this world after a long life of work in education for many years that was acknowledged with an award of the Israel Prize in our country.

But for us, a small community of his students that remained prior to his arrival to Israel, it felt as if with his departure a page of our private history closed.  It was as if we lost a father figure that was tied with our fond memories of being students in the Yavne gymnasium in Telshe, of which he was the principal.

We addressed him by his last name, Dr. Holzberg, prior to the change to a Hebrew name, since this way we felt closer to him.  Each meeting with him until the last year of his life brought fond memories of those precious years before the devastation that descended on Telshe, with its institutions of Jewish education that formed our spiritual and social world.  Against the special atmosphere of Telshe, saturated with the Torah and spirit of ethics, with its implications for each detail, we had Dr. Holzberg as a perfect role model to identify with, to practice virtues, and to strive for perfection.  In his lessons he tried to instill in us a Jewish world view based on the values of the Torah.  Even math and physics lessons were infused with faith, and like literature lessons, were accompanied by sayings of the sages of blessed memory and golden proverbs from the best of world literature.

Educational instruction in its fundamental form, and the goal of providing us with Torah and good manners, transformed many lessons into an exciting experience for our developing minds.  Being a man of faith and science, he was a master of brilliant formulation and a clear definition of ideas, as is demonstrated in the writings that he left behind.

Since the study of nature was close to his heart, Dr. Holzberg established a club for nature lovers at the gymnasium and he took us on trips to the forests and the lake close to Telshe.  We enjoyed his explanations about flowers and various shrubs and the life of a tree.  In our imagination we probably saw the forest on Mount Carmel^[1] and Lake Kineret^[2], but these lessons, along with the social games that he loved to organize, were an educational event that we remembered for many years.

Dr. Holzberg had an exceptional memory.  Not once were we surprised how he enjoyed - even in the last years - to recall interesting details of the school's life like exams, grades and the relationships between the girls and the management.  We remembered his interest in the quality of accommodations for the girls that came to Telshe, “a place of Torah”, from the small towns of Lita.  The strict discipline that he established in the gymnasium - like the requirement to be at home after 10pm or to get permission to go to a movie theater, or to care about each detail of the uniform - did not appear to us as something that we could not tolerate.

Considering the current permissive education and its results, may we have “educator giants” like Dr. Etzion z”l.  His memory will stay with us, and may his great soul be bound up in the bond of everlasting life.

Editor's Footnotes:

1. Famous mountain in the State of Israel. Return
2. Famous lake in the State of Israel. Return

[Page 164]

I was still in my youth when I first heard his name. The name “Hartzfeld” – It was always like that, no mention of the first name – was often mentioned in our home. I knew that in the days when we were still free, he had studied at my grandfather's yeshiva in Telshe, which is in Lithuania, and that my grandfather, R[abbi] Eliezar Gordon, felt affection toward him and had brought him into his household, and from that time on he became a friend of the family. From what I heard, I imagined him as a very important person, and someone of extraordinary ability. From time to time I heard them say. “We need to ask Hartzfeld,” and these words had the ring of hope and optimistic expectation. Sometimes he would visit our house – a house whose way of life was modest and where prosperity never prevailed – and light would come streaming through the clouds. His arrival would always be like a breath of fresh air that would restore the soul, and his loud voice and greeting, which would resound deep into the interior of the house while he was still at the threshold, would fill the house and echo from end to end. Even then I would feel “It's good to be around Hartzfeld.”

I was very surprised when, later on, Hartzfeld invited me to work as his secretary. This was at the end of 1942. I don't know why he chose me. Perhaps it was because his previous secretary-assistants did not remain in this role and would be frequently replaced. In this regard, his choice was successful: From that point on I was bound to him through work for thirty-one years, up to the point of his departure [from this world].

Hartzfeld's life-story is like a riveting, event-filled novel. Here is his description – briefly expressed:

I was born in the year 1891 in the township of Stavishche [Yiddish – Stavisht] in the Ukraine. I was a youth when I left home. After my mother's death, I traveled to study at Berdichev Yeshiva. Since I was without means, there would be days when I wouldn't eat, as was the custom of many of the yeshiva students during those days. I soon ceased this way of life; I preferred to simply be hungry half the time, as I was able to do through the ‘support’ that I received from home and from the yeshiva – of two rubles per month.

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After one and a half years I traveled from Berdichev to the Telshe Yeshiva in Lithuania – the biggest and most famous yeshiva of its time. I studied there for almost four years and was privileged to attend the class of R[abbi] Eliezar Gordon, the head of the yeshiva.

After the [April 1903] Kishinev Pogrom I left the Telshe Yeshiva and moved to Vilna, to learn Torah from the mouth of R[abbi] Chaim Ozer [Grodzinski].^[2] At that time I was ‘caught up’ in the Workers' Party S.S.^[3] I became an advisor on complicated matters [mesubkot] and at the labor exchange” More than once I was caught by the [czarist Russian] regime, which ultimately imprisoned me in the famous Lukishka Fortress.^[4] After a year-and-a-half of ‘isolation,’ they sentenced me to life in exile in Siberia. A full year I traveled across the plains of Siberia until I arrived at my place of exile in Proverzhenka [sp.], in the district of Kirensk, Irkutsk Oblast. I spent three-and-a-half years there next to the Koroluna gold mines, near the city of Bodaybo. The owner of the mines was a Jew, Santor Freizer, and the director was A. Novomeysky, who later became the head of the potash company in Israel.^[5]

I escaped from my exile by means of a passport that I forged with my own hands and in it I changed my name to ‘Hartzfeld,’ and in the year 1914, on the Ninth of Av, the eve of the closing of the gates of [immigration to] the Land [of Israel] with the outbreak of the First World War, I arrived in the Land [of Israel]. I went to Petach Tikvah, where I was an agricultural worker in an orchard. After a short while I was elected to the local workers' council, and, after that, to the Central Committee of the Federation (Histadrut) of agricultural workers, together with the [my] friends Berl Katzenelson, Shmuel Yavnieli, Neta Harpaz, and Levi Shkolnik (Eshkol).^[6] Fifty years have passed since then. Almost from its very inception I have worked in the Hebrew Yishuv in the Land [of Israel].”^[7]

The love of the Land [of Israel]; and its soil, the love of settlement, and those settling it burned in Hartzfeld like an eternal flame and filled every corner of his being.

In his work Hartzfeld was like a Sambation River,^[8] a raging torrent. His office was always full of people and everything in it was run “at full steam.” He tended to come to his office in the Agricultural Union on Tel Aviv's noisy Allenby Street at a very early hour, and would immerse himself with complete energy and enthusiasm into his long, jam-packed, workday that continued almost without pause until late at night. During this period, the 1940s and the early 1950s, the Agricultural Union was an institution that was held in the highest esteem by the “labor settlements” and Hartzfeld was involved in nearly every matter concerning the [various] settlement agencies.

There was always a throng of people at the entrance to his door: Out of the challenges of the kibbutzim and moshavim came emissaries of agriculture and, in addition to them, persons came asking for a favor or a mercy, one for this, another for that, these would enter while those would be exiting and [all] brought their matters before Hartzfeld. In his office there was a row of chairs around his large desk and along the walls, and they were all generally occupied. The [constant] presence of [this] congregation of people around him didn't distract him from dealing with any problem whatsoever. On the contrary, he loved the throng, as if to say: Come, let us deal with the matter as a group. The word “group” in his mouth was like a launch code (sisma sh'gura) -- a call to action and unity (k-kriah medarbenet umelakedet).

A custom that Hartzfeld meticulously observed over all his years was to go to Jerusalem every week on Monday. This day was devoted to discussions with the settlement agencies – the Jewish Agency's Department of Settlement and the Jewish National Fund. His Wednesdays were devoted to meetings of the Agricultural Union in Tel Aviv. Nothing short of Divine Intervention would divert him from this schedule, and he operated in this fashion from the beginning until the recent period.

On the remaining days Hartzfeld's time in the office was not structured. He would travel frequently: Visiting farms and touring their territories were weekly activities. Those who needed him were often obliged to track him down by following him from place to place. Old timers from the valley [Jezreel] would say, either in seriousness or in jest, that in their day they would stop the train going from Haifa to Tzemach^[9] via the valley [Jezreel], board the train, and ask “Is Hartzfeld here?…”

Slowly but steadily Hartzfeld adopted regular work rules: There were regular days for receiving the public and for pre-scheduled meetings. But, despite this attempt, his schedule was frequently disrupted: A meeting might not finish on time, there might be a protracted conversation, or people might drop by unannounced. I believe that the reason for this is also to be found in the work ethic that Hartzfeld had attached himself to since his youth as a “yeshiva bocher,”^[10] namely, that one who forgets the time while immersed in his [study of] Talmud.

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He was easy to anger – but by the same measure he was easy to appease. His anger would flare up over every [perceived] instance of injustice. Breaking desks was far too frequent a spectacle with him, whether it was his own desk or one in one of the [other] institutions. More than once we were forced to replace the glass covering on his desk, and eventually we threw it out entirely. This “strategy” didn't work in every instance, because even the wooden cover couldn't always withstand the force of his pounding fist. But he would quickly calm down and his reprimands would be forgotten as quickly as if they had never happened, because he never intended for his words to insult or cause injury; rather, they were simply driven by his fatherly love and his passion[-ate concern] for the matter [at hand]. Someone once said that this characteristic came to him from his rabbi, R[abbi] Eliezar Gordon [the head of the Telshe Yeshiva], who would upbraid his beloved students with words of admonishment when their responses did not satisfy him.

The dizzying pace of work did not let up over the course of the day. He would move from one task to another without pause, from dealing with a question regarding the settlements to taking care of some charitable matter. Only toward the late evening hours, after all the waiting supplicants had left and all of the meetings and appointments with members of the Agricultural Union were through (and these would last throughout most of the evening), would the man fall silent. He would then turn to work on the correspondence that had piled up on his desk and respond to them; to contemplate ideas; and to prepare his plans for the next day. And when he was alone, in his calming and quiet house, he would occasionally hum a tune to himself quietly, some old niggun [melody] of a yeshiva bocher left alone in the beit midrash, diligently studying his Talmud….

Hartzfeld was a healthy, strong individual. Until he reached advanced age he was never ill, never missed a single day of work, and never gave himself a day off. Even Sabbath days and holidays were devoted to work, in particular to visits and meetings. He was involved in almost every aspect of the settlements: immigration on the ground, the annual Immigration and Settlement Day, the Water Festival, the harvest, the dedication of the first houses – in all of these and other similar events he was the chief benefactor who ushered these events into existence. There he was, departing after a full day at the office, and then – if the event took place during the daylight hours – there he would be returning to the office in the evening. He always tended to go to the office upon his return [from an event], regardless of how late the hour, in order to see what [work] had accumulated on his desk and what messages and notifications had been received in his absence. During those days he didn't have a vehicle to take him where he wanted; the trips he took, even the ones to the most distant locations, would be accomplished by riding buses. He could complete a 14- or 16-hour work day with the same energy with which he had begun it. He would take brief naps, whether in his office or on trips, in order to refresh himself and avoid exhaustion. Very often he would simply stretch out on a bench in his office or on several chairs that he would line up next to one another and, using his work briefcase as a pillow, catch a short nap.

He judged others according to his own criteria. He would froth and rage when he was told that so-and-so had asked to speak or meet with him, had taken summer vacation, or had not shown up due to illness. I remember how he received me when I was bed-ridden with the measles -- which, of all times, had afflicted me during my matriculation exams – and the disease was difficult and exhausting. When I opened the door to the office upon my return to work after an absence of seven or eight days, he berated me severely: “Such irresponsibility, being ill for so many days!” And there was no more instructive example of how his attitude changed later on, when his own health was no longer what it had been in earlier days and he himself would take to his sick bed from time to time, than the advice he would give me when I fell ill one day with the flu: “Please, don't get out of bed too quickly,” he told me on the phone, “Better to stay at home another day and get stronger…”

Hartzfeld was a very conservative individual. His manner of living was very organized and predictable, one in which any diversion from the path was ardently resisted. For many years he lived in a room that he rented in a Tel Aviv apartment. When the owners of the apartment left the apartment, Hartzfeld left with them. He never stopped going to the same laundry, the same barber, or the same greengrocer – even when they were they were located on the other side of town [from him].

In his home every piece of furniture, every object, whether large or small, had its designated place, and once there, its place never changed. It was the same in his office: the chairs were [arranged] around the table and along the walls, the desk, the inkstand, the attaché case -- every single thing was in the place that had been assigned for it.

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Whether it was day or night, he never left the office before putting everything back in its proper place.

His daily planner (yoman) was a large notebook that could not be obtained ready-made, but which had to be prepared and updated daily. In this notebook he tended to write, in a neat, wondrously precise, and clear script, every single matter and affair, and the pages were replete with marks, inscriptions, and numbers. Even though he was gifted with an amazingly precise memory, he didn't trust his recollection alone. He was never separated from his notebook and would take it with him to every place he went.

He liked to write in ink. In his office he preferred to use a quill, a pen, and a simple nib, even though most of mankind had long since ceased to use them. If he made any error in writing he would never cross it out; rather, he would try to fix it by changing a letter or number on which he made a mistake, and would take pains to ensure that the mistake couldn't be detected. If his correction didn't look good, he would take an eraser – an ink eraser – that was found in his pocket. The following scene was all too common: When he would get angry – and that was an almost every-day occurrence – he would slam his hand onto the desk, and from the inkwell, which was always open, drops of ink would splash out and many would then stain the page of his notebook. And then the “labor” of erasure would commence: He would produce the hard eraser from his pocket and scratch at the stain until it disappeared. More than once he would make a hole in the page from all the rubbing, and then he would need to cut out the page and paste in a new page underneath. And if there was something or other that finally caused him to finally put down the quill and to attempt to use a ball-point pen, it was undoubtedly the ink stains that did it…

Hartzfeld was one of a kind, and just as great as his unusual personality were the great contradictions within it – where there existed both things and their opposites.

He harbored an immense love for family, and yet he himself never established one.

He consisted of equal parts of egocentricity and altruism: On the one hand, he was intensely focused upon himself; and upon the other hand on his love for his neighbor and his readiness to serve his people.

There was no limit to his readiness to help those in need: Someone infirm and in need of admission to the hospital, a young married couple in need of an apartment, a worker without work, a peddler whose license had been confiscated; these, and many, many more favors he dispensed. There were [times] that a man from the street would come up and knock on his door for some or other matter, who would say, “I heard that Hartzfeld helps everyone.” Hartzfeld's first response would be to grow angry and to grouse, but in the end he would calm down and take the matter upon himself. When he did that he would give no thought to his efforts or time.

One incident like this was as follows: One morning, during the period of the British Mandate over the Land of Israel,^[11] I learned that Hartzfeld had been arrested the previous night in Jerusalem. It was on a night of curfew that the British had imposed on the city due to some or other action that had been carried out by one of the underground organizations, and Hartzfeld was arrested walking down the street during one of the prohibited hours while carrying a military blanket on his arm. This was what aroused the suspicion of the British guards. He was released the following day after he was able to prove that the blanket was old and worn and had been in his possession since the days of Turk[ish sovereignty], and his purpose in walking down the street during the curfew was to give it to a family of meager means whose garments were insufficient for the winter.

Hartzfeld was not an agricultural expert, but he knew, through some inexplicable sense, how to get to the root of agricultural problems and to deal with the experts on an equal basis; it was wonderful the way he succeeded in summing up the discussions of the Agricultural Union on subjects of farming or irrigation, how over the course of a discussion he would come to understand the nature of the problem, and how his summations were always marked by his grasping of the essence and thereby bridging the contradictions or opposing [positions] while summarizing the matter.^[12](*)

The following story was told by Hartzfeld himself: A well-known factory for which he, Hartzfeld, had himself taken responsibility, encountered financial difficulties – an all-too-frequent occurrence – and he was forced to seek out hidden sources [of funding], and he would “knock on the doors” of the various institutions and businessmen. Since there wasn't an abundance of hard currency to be had, Hartzfeld suggested that he be given commitments that he hoped “to turn into cash” by the working out arrangements where he could “flip” them through “discounts.”

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And it was in this sense that he once came to “L.,” a well-known businessman in the Land [of Israel], with a proposal that “L.” give Hartzfeld currency, because he had been given an “important task” for raising funds. The person with whom Hartzfeld was speaking hesitated, but in the end opened his drawer, took out the requested sum of cash, and handed it to Hartzfeld. Hartzfeld finished his story and said that he came [to the meeting with this businessman] with great embarrassment: The money was indeed given to him, but his “arrangement” got bogged down and ultimately fell apart…

Hartzfeld's language would pull on the heartstrings, through its heartfelt sincerity and its “down home” familiarity. The crowds loved him to listen to him. The sayings and proverbs that were from the rich Yiddish language would provide great pleasure among his listeners. He wasn't good at expressing his thoughts or ideas in a properly precise or stylish manner, and he would produce idioms and linguistic usages that didn't always conform with the rules of grammar and syntax (Berl Katzenelson^[13] said: “I am a slave to the language; and Hartzfeld is a lord of the language.”). During his speeches or lectures Hartzfeld would frequently use a meaningful hand gesture or facial expression, the meaning of which, though unspoken, would be understood by his audience. The gestures and facial expressions, of course, were not reflected in the stenographer's notes or in press reports, and he always accepted the fact that [records of] his speeches always came out neutral and somehow lacking…. When his speeches were edited he knew to insert the correct formulation and the right expression.

Within him burned a love of the People and Land of Israel. A successful action, a good report, these would lift his spirits and give him joy, and his spirits would sink when he didn't meet with success in some or other area of our lives; but he was never given over to despair nor did he give up. Even in those difficult days, in those days of despair, there was no one like him who could encourage and lift sunken spirits, to give a sense of assurance and faith. The knowledge that “Hartzfeld is here” would radiate positivity, both during holidays and celebrations and in times of sorrow and distress.

As was already mentioned, during the period before the establishment of the State [of Israel] and the establishment of the [official] state institutions, the Agricultural Union was an institution with great authority. And what it said tended to carry enormous weight, both within its walls and beyond them. As the head of the Agricultural Union Hartzfeld was seen by all as a strong personality, extremely ethical, and very authoritative. From time to time, accusations would be leveled against him from some in the private farm (moshav) movement that he tended to side with the kibbutzim (it did always seem to me that the kibbutz way of life and its way of settling [the land] were nearer and dearer to his heart), but his authority never suffered from such [accusations] and he enjoyed the prestige of the entire settlement movement.

One of the most difficult periods of his life was when the schism began within the United Kibbutz [Movement] with the establishment of the Union of kivutzot and kibbutzim.^[14] This split, which began in 1952, showed its effects on numerous agricultural communities, including the most long-standing and established ones, and caused great tension and fights between the two camps. The Agricultural Union immersed itself fully in this problem, and a committee under Hartzfeld's chairmanship occupied itself with settling the various claims and resolving disputes that emerged from the split. Very heated discussions were accompanied by difficult manifestations of brotherly strife and continued for a long while on the farms that were hurt by the split. Hartzfeld believed that his mediation would influence the quarreling sides to moderate their behavior and [commit to] mutual concessions for the sake of a quick solution to the dispute. But he was met instead with bitter disappointment, something that caused him profound sorrow and distress. The extremism of the two sides on matters that were most dear to them – ideas and education – was great, and even though they were moved by Hartzfeld's distress, the arguments were sharp and protracted. It took years for the wounds to heal among the agricultural settlements that were divided and the friends who were separated. Hartzfeld, who always knew how to extract the good from a bad situation, drew comfort from the fact that the farms that separated established themselves quickly and the new farms that were established after the split all continued to grow and became the biggest and most prosperous.

Hartzfeld's activities were not limited to settlement matters, although this area certainly took pride of place in his world and public activities. However, this didn't prevent him from lending his hand to many other varied enterprises far beyond the aforementioned field of activity. More than once I was surprised by this ability of his: How, within the immense flood of problems with the settlements, he was able to find the time and the physical and mental strength to occupy himself with additional problems. He would say: “What's the most important problem

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that you deal with? – and he would answer: “The problem that you are dealing with at the moment.”

The essential side of Hartzfeld's activities was in societal and human institutions. For that reason we find among his factories also convalescent homes, hospitals, retirement homes, and charitable institutions for the handicapped, such as the deaf and blind, and in his last years institutions to aid those with terminal diseases.

Even in the Knesset [the Israeli parliament] his prime interest was in social and humanitarian subjects. He never missed an opportunity during discussions of the national budget in the Finance Committee to which he was appointed membership, or on the floor of the Knesset, to point out failings or deficiencies and to demand their rectification. This, in his eyes, was a housing issue. He saw in housing the human side, and therefore he never ceased from arguing against plans for residential units that did not take human needs into account.

Hartzfeld was, above all, a man of action. His actions that at first glance appeared to have no chance of success would come to full fruition thanks to his persistence and powers of persuasion. He would say: “I begin with small percentages, that wouldn't seem to yield great rewards at first.”

The instance that is recounted below occurred in the first years of my working with Hartzfeld, at the beginning of the year 1944. At that time Hartzfeld did not have a car at his ready disposal to take him from place to place, so he traveled by bus. On one of those trips Hartzfeld's arm was injured in a traffic accident. It was a very grievous injury: He suffered severe fractures to his elbow and forearm, and was in danger of having [to have] his arm amputated. However, thanks to the devoted care of the doctors at the Beilinson Hospital (Dr. Natan and Dr. Pausner), his arm was saved. Hartzfeld lay in the hospital for nine months undergoing a series of operations and difficult, painful treatments. His arm and shoulder were in a heavy, thick cast that was connected by a supporting beam.

A person like Hartzfeld doesn't just lie there doing nothing. After recovering slightly, he began to demand that they would bring his work affairs to him. Soon thereafter he began to summon people to his hospital room. He had a separate room, and this was turned into an office. Meetings of the Agricultural Union's Settlement Department would even be held at the hospital, in the library. And more than once Hartzfeld forgot where he was, and shouting could be heard emanating from his room.

In those days the Beilinson Hospital was located in a small building which faced orchards in the front and behind it was the small agricultural settlement of a “training farm” (havvat limudim). Hartzfeld could see these fields through his hospital window and began to formulate a plan by which the lands surrounding the hospital grounds could be acquired and used for housing for medical personnel. The owners of the orchards lived in Petach Tikvah, and Hartzfeld sent intermediaries to invite them to [meet] him [in the hospital]. They began to come and go, and an intensive negotiation began to be conducted within the walls of his room. The owners raised the prices and the negotiations were long and tiring.

More difficult and complicated were the discussions surrounding the matter of the “training farm,” whose lands were like a “bone in the throat” stuck within the borders of the hospital grounds. Here the question was not just one of acquiring the lands of the “training farm,” but also of finding replacement lands so that the farm could continue to exist as an institution for agricultural education. The “training farm” was also situated within a highly restricted physical space without room to expand or develop, and Hartzfeld understood that his plan was also a window of opportunity for the institution to break out of its current confines. Nevertheless, the matter reached an impasse due to the uncompromising opposition of the farm's directors.

In the end, [however,] Hartzfeld's efforts were crowned with success. The orchards and the lands were acquired and the Beilinson Hospital became one of the largest and most advanced medical institutions in the country. Regarding the “training farm”, the Jewish National Fund allocated a large area for it in the south, near Gadera, and, with the assistance of the settlement budget, a large, modern agricultural school was built upon it – and that was, of course, the “Kinneret” agricultural school.

Hartzfeld also possessed that quality, so rare among humanity, and one that more than anything else seemed to testify to this mark of his character (segulat nafsho): He never held a grudge. He knew how to rise above the [settling of] “personal accounts,” and with respect to his opponents – as is the way of things, he had them as well – he valued them according to their deeds. Those close to him knew that there was a hostility between him and Levi Eshkol^[15] that persisted for years. This derived from those days in which Eshkol was elected to be a member of the Agricultural Union

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(at that time he was still known by his earlier surname – Shkolnik). For days, when Eshkol was appointed as head of the Jewish Agency's Department of Settlement, Hartzfeld severely criticized a number of Eshkol's ways of operating in the area of relations with the Agricultural Union. Even so, Hartzfeld was one of Eshkol's most reliable supporters throughout all of his different posts. Hartzfeld looked at the balance of Eshkol's deeds and saw that they were great in number and importance. And when Eshkol published his book, In the Pale of Settlement (B'hevel ha-hitnahlut), he dedicated it to Hartzfeld thusly, “To the Master of Practical Deeds and of Bearing the Burden” (le-rav ha'osim be-m'lakhah uv-nosim be-sevel).

Kalno Gatvė – Hill Street – in Telshe

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to see them through to completion. Hartzfeld stood by the yeshiva until his very last days, and since his death a candle of remembrance for the elevation of his soul has been lit in the yeshiva.

Until his 80^th year, Hartzfeld's health was sound. From time to time he would go to the hospital for tests, or due to some illness that was found to be of no real concern, and he would then return to work with all his vigor. One evening a change suddenly occurred as he was leaving the office, and he was afflicted by dizziness. The next day he complained that his vision was no longer what it had been before. That turned out to be the onset of his loss of vision. The process was long and protracted. His vision gradually weakened and the affliction was revealed to be untreatable. At first Hartzfeld attempted to conceal his affliction, but in the end, as it grew worse he resigned himself to the fact that everyone was aware of it.

For someone like Hartzfeld this [loss] was an absolute tragedy. His ability to read, to write, and to view his surroundings were taken from him. Most difficult of all for him were the evening hours, when he would return to his house alone.

But Hartzfeld also showed his greatness in these circumstances. He didn't complain, and he also refused to simply acquiesce in this bitter fate. On the contrary, he said: “The Lord has been good to me; he has granted me many years of life and I have been allowed to see the fruits of my labors; each additional day is a gift of the heavens, and I am grateful that [at least] my mind has not been affected.” He strongly refused to accept assistance from anyone else, male or female, and preferred to remain at his home. He entrusted himself with various errands that helped him to preserve his way of life. He learned and remembered where every single thing was, both in his house and at the office, and he learned to walk without bumping into the furniture. He recognized people by their voices. His talks and speeches he composed and edited in his head. He continued to run the meetings of the Agricultural Union's Department of Settlements, and all this by a memory that grew even sharper and came to take the place of writing. He continued to hold meetings with people from the [other] institutions and to visit settlements, although those gradually became fewer in number. He didn't cease his habit of putting on his glasses when going outside, even though he no longer needed them. Only in the last year of his life, as his decline accelerated, did he agree to accept the assistance of a woman [nurse].

On the 25^th Anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel he was awarded the Israel Prize for “his special contribution to the advance of the society and the country.” This was the first time that this prize had been given in this category, and in the words of Yig'al Allon, who then filled the positions of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Culture, “It [the Prize] had fallen to the man, of whom there is none more deserving; a person who is counted with the last of the giants (b'nei nefillim) of the First Generation, of the Founding Generation, Avraham Hartzfeld, Man of the Field and of the Heart.”

And the Prime Minister, Golda Meir, wrote to Hartzfeld, saying “Today is a greater day for Israel than for you.”

With emotion-filled words Hartzfeld answered his admirers: “Am I indeed deserving of this highest of honors? It is hard for me to reconcile myself with this fact. What is my legacy, if not the special requirements of the people and of the land? And my heart's prayer is this: That the remaining days of my life shall not be wasted and that I shall have the strength to do that which is still entrusted to me to do, and that I shall do it.”

His strength would remain for another year and four months, until he took to his bed. This time we knew that the danger to his life was great: Internal bleeding. In our hearts we still nurtured the hope that a miracle would occur and that Hartzfeld would escape this peril as well. But this miracle never happened. On one Saturday night, at two in the morning, the phone rang at my home. On the other end of the line was Professor Rosenfeld from the Beilinson Hospital. He informed me that Hartzfeld's condition had worsened and at a physicians' meeting it was decided to perform a surgery on him that very night.

After the surgery I visited Hartzfeld every day, both in the morning and in the evening. When I came to him at the hospital on morning of Thursday, the 2^nd of Elul, [5]753,^[17] I found him awake. He started in with questions: “What is going on at the office? How are the members of my family?” I departed from his presence promising that I would return in the afternoon. Before I left, he asked me: Would his book (the author Aharon Meirovitz worked diligently on its editing) be published? I promised him that that indeed the book would make it to publication. It was nine o'clock in the morning. Within the hour he passed on.

His last journey was from the Agricultural Union across the villages of Israel and their fields to the cemetery on the shores of the Kinneret [the Sea of Galilee]. He chose to be buried in this place, amid his beloved and respected friends.

From the hills of the Galilee we hewed out a gravestone for his grave, a big, solid slab of basalt.

Footnotes:
[Ed.] - Translator editor's footnote [Or.] - Original footnote

1. Avraham Hartzfeld, whose name originally was Avraham Postrelko, studied at the Berdichev and Telshe yeshivas and received a rabbinical diploma. He became active in Socialist Zionist politics, for which the czarist authorities twice imprisoned him in Vilna. In 1910 he was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor in Siberia, but he escaped in 1914 and made his way to the Land of Israel. There, he became a recognized labor and agricultural leader before embarking on a political career. He was a central figure in the establishment of early Israeli settlements (kibbutzim) and later became a member of the Knesset. [Ed.] Return
2. Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski (1863-1940) was a pre-eminent Talmudic scholar and posek (halakhic authority), who served as a presiding rabbinical-court judge in Vilna during the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries. [Ed.] Return
3. The term used by the author is Mifleget Ha-Po'alim S.S., which is believed to be a reference to Zionist-Socialist Workers Party, which was founded in Odessa in 1905. In Russian, the name was Сионистско-социалистическая рабочая партия, and it was often referred to simply by its two Russian initials “S.S.” [Ed.] Return
4. The Lukishki/Lukiškės Prison in Vilna was an imposing structure that resembled, and was referred to as, a fortress. [Ed.] Return
5. Moshe Abramovich Novomeysky (1873-1961). [Ed.] Return
6. Levi Eshkol (1895-1969) served as Israel's third prime minister (1963-1969). [Ed.] Return
7. Hartzfeld's original surname was Postrelko. He changed the surname on his passport on the Ninth of Av, which is significant date on the Jewish calendar. Levi Eshkol (1895-1969) later became Israel's third prime minister. [Ed.] Return
8. In Judaic and Christian tradition, this is the name of a mythical river behind which the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were confined to live until the Messianic Age. During the week the river raged not with water but with huge boulders, which rolled violently and constantly, preventing it from being forded, and was only still on the Sabbath, when Jews are not allowed to travel. [Ed.] Return
9. Tzemach, near the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, had a station on the railway line that had been built during Ottoman period that connected Haifa and Dara'a. The line was referred to as the Jezreel Valley railway and the Valley Train (Hebrew: רַכֶּבֶת הָעַמֶק.) [Ed.] Return
10. The term “yeshiva bocher” means a young male student at a rabbinical seminary. [Ed.] Return
11. After the First World War, the League of Nations conferred upon Britain control of a portion of the former colonial possessions of Turkey, including the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River Valley. This “Mandate” ended on May 14, 1948, when the State of Israel was established. [Ed.] Return
12. He wasn't a financial expert. Nevertheless, he was renowned for his ability to make “arrangements” (kombinatzia) in this field, and he succeeded in doing what the experts were unable to do – even those thoroughly versed in the ways of economics. Not a few industries that were thought to have had no chance [of success] were brought into being thanks to this rare ability of his. [Or.] Return
13. Berl Katznelson (1887-1944) was one of the intellectual founders of Labor Zionism. He was the editor of Davar, Israel's first daily newspaper of the workers' movement. He was born in Bobruysk (then, in the Russian Empire's Mogilev Gubernya, and today in Belarus) and made aliyah to the Land of Israel in 1909. [Ed.] Return
14. A kivutza is a small agricultural community which is administered upon a socialist ideal. A kibbutz is similar but contemplates a self-supporting village and allows for industrial production. A severe ideological dispute erupted between the adherents of the otherwise similar models. The ideological differences later faded. [Ed.] Return
15. Levi Eshkol (1895-1969), who was born Levi Yitzhchak Shkolnik, was an Israeli politician who held a series of important positions and eventually became the country's third prime minister (1963-1969). [Ed.] Return
16. From the age of 14 until 20, Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman (1886-1969) studied at the Telshe Yeshiva under Rabbis Eliezer Gordon and Shimon Shkop. He then studied briefly at the yeshiva in Novogrudok and then studied for three years at the yeshiva of the Chofetz Chaim in Radun. In 1919 he was appointed the rabbi of Ponevizh [Lithuanian: Panevėžys], where he established three yeshivas, a school, and an orphanage. He also was elected to the Republic of Lithuania's parliament [Lithuanian: Seimas]. He was in the British Mandate of Palestine when the Soviets took control of Lithuania in 1940 and did not return. In 1944 he re-established the Ponevizh Yeshiva in B'nei B'rak, Israel. Return
17. September 2, 1973. Return

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