Halukkah was the financial allowance for the support of the inhabitants of Erez Israel from the contributions of their coreligionists in the Diaspora. The halukkah was based on the conviction that Erez Israel held the central position in the religious and national consciousness of the people. This population is not to be considered as any other entity of Jews, but rather as the representative of the whole Jewish people, the guardian of all that is sacred in the Holy Land; in this role it merits the support of the whole people. The Jews, in the lands of their dispersion, both communities and individuals, were conscious of their duty toward the yishuv and considered their support of it as an act of identification with it. The Amsterdam center, which was reorganized at the beginning of the 19th century under the leadership of Zevi Hirsch Lehren (1784–1853), was of great importance. It appointed collectors in the important communities of Western Europe and received annual pledges from them. These funds were then distributed between the various communities of Palestine, according to a fixed scale and with the consent of the leaders of the yishuv. The halukkah was a decisive factor in the existence and the development of the Jewish population in Palestine. Its importance grew during the 19th century, when immigration reached serious proportions. At that time Palestine was economically poor and was ruled by a retarded and corrupt government. Under these circumstances the yishuv could not have existed, much less have grown, had it not been organized within the framework of the kolelim, who provided for their people and gathered money from abroad. The kolelim, who were responsible for the halukkah distributions, played an important role in the development of urban settlement, especially outside the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem. The Jewish quarters, which were built after 1869 on the initiative of the kolel leaders, were an important factor in the territorial expansion of the Jewish population of Jerusalem. The Jewish population in the other three "holy cities" -Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias - also was essentially reliant on the halukkah.

חלק ד: חשבון כסף הקדשים... תרט"ו... חשבון כללי... תרט"ו... חשבון הנדבה החדשה... למן א כסלו... ועד כד אלול תרט"ז. דפוס ישראל לעוויססאן פירמא דוד פרופס כ"ץ, תרט"ז. [1], כ עמ'.