Land of My Birth – In 5643 (1883), one year after the beginning of the First Aliyah, the Chovevei Tzion organization in Poland established what was at the time the northernmost settlement in the land – the Moshava “Yesud Hama’alah.” The scenery in the area appeared enchanted, as described by Mordechai Lubman, who visited the

Land of My Birth – The people of the First Aliyah were religious, and they did not abandon the Torah even after arriving in Eretz Yisrael. The pioneers of the Second Aliyah, on the other hand, were rebels who stayed away from the traditions which they had been taught in the Diaspora. But some of

Land of My Birth – The title of this article may well conjure up a romantic scene with a lake of swans and ducks, but in reality it is the name of an IDF call-up exercise which was held the first of April 1959. But this leads to the obvious question: What do ducks have

Land of My Birth – Rabbi Avraham Shalush was a rich businessman and a Torah scholar who lived a life of honor and wealth in the port city Oran, in Algeria. But this did not satisfy his agitated soul, since he felt very clearly that he could only reach perfection in Eretz Yisrael. His enthusiasm

Land of My Birth – The country was still young, and the security force in the Knesset was not well organized yet. This is the only reasonable way to explain how in the fall of 5718 (1957) a man named Moshe Duek, 26 years old, was able to sneak by the guards and enter the

Land of My Birth – In the beginning of the eighteenth century the Jewish community of Jerusalem grew, reaching a total of about 10,000 by the year 1741. The area was calm and safe and the Torah institutions in the city expanded, as is described below: “G-d has given us success, such that in our

Land of My Birth – The Second World War had ended, and the Jewish survivors were set free from the death camps and from their hiding places. A movement sprung up, the “Bericha” – meaning to flee – gathering together tens of thousands Jewish refugees, who had managed to rise up from the inferno in

Land of My Birth – The “first Hebrew city,” established in 1909 as a neighborhood named “Achuzat Bayit,” was planned from the very beginning as a modern city. The streets were wide and properly laid out according to the standards of the times, and all the streets had sidewalks. Yosef Eliyahu Shalush was the contractor

Land of My Birth – It is certainly true that organizing a wedding for a son or a daughter is a complex operation: starting with finding a proper match, taking care of physical needs such as an apartment and furniture, the wedding ceremony itself, and ending with a Shabbat of celebration in honor of the

Land of My Birth – Is there anybody among our readers who is not familiar with the song “Al Sefat Yam Kinneret” – On the Shores of the Kinneret? Its enchanted words were written by Yaacov Fichman, based on his great love for Eretz Yisrael and for the children of Yisrael who study Torah. The