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A collection of letters that warn about maintaining the foundation of righteousness of the Holy Land. The letters deal with the charitable institutions of Jerusalem and with the intent of the Rabbis who authored the letters that the manner of distribution of funds not be changed. The letters are intended for R. Moshe Zevulun Margolies, a Rabbi from New York who was the head of the Committee of Charities for Erez Israel. The letters are signed by various well known Rabbis, such as R. Abraham Isaac Kook, R. Yehuda Leib Diskin, and R. Hayim Berlin, et alia.
Halukkah was a financial allowance for the support of the inhabitants of Erez Israel from the contributions of their coreligionists in the Diaspora. In a wider sense, halukkah denotes the organized method of this support and the institutions responsible for it, especially after the end of the 18th century.
The fundamental idea on which the halukkah is based is the conviction that Erez Israel held the central position in the religious and national consciousness of the people, hence the special importance accorded to the population residing there. 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 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. |
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קובץ מכתבים מזהירים על שמירת יסודי הצדקות של ארץ הקדושה, שלא תחול בה שינוים של חלוף צורה והפוך צנורות למרכזים שונים.
המכתבים, המיועדים לר' משה זבולון מרגליות, רב בניו-יורק ויושב ראש "ועד הצדקות של ארץ-ישראל", חתומים בידי רבני ירושלים.
ורק אחד מהם כתוב בידי ר' אברהם יצחק הכהן קוק רבה של יפו. |
