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R. Meir Berlin, later Hebraized to Meir Bar-Ilan, (1880-1949), born Volozhin, Lithuania, died Jerusalem, Israel) was an Orthodox rabbi and leader of Religious Zionism, the Mizrachi movement in USA and British Mandate of Palestine. He inspired the founding of Bar Ilan University in Israel which is named for him.In 1905 he joined the Mizrachi movement, representing it at the Seventh Zionist Congress, voting against the "Uganda Proposal" to create a "temporary" Jewish "homeland" in Uganda in East Africa, as suggested by Great Britain.
In 1911 he was appointed secretary of the world Mizrachi (Religious Zionism) movement. In 1913 he came to the United States and developed local Mizrachi groups into a national organisation, chairing the 1st U.S. Mizrachi convention, held in Cincinnati in 1914. In 1915 he became president of the U.S. Mizrachi, holding the position until 1928, whereupon he became honorary president. He was an active member of the JDC during World War I, also serving as vice president of the Central Relief Committee of New York City in 1916. He founded the Mizrachi Teachers Institute in 1917. In 1925 he became a member of the Board of Directors of the Jewish National Fund devoted to financing the rebuilding of the Jewish homeland in the then British Mandate of Palestine. In 1923, he also briefly served as acting president what is now Yeshiva University during the temporary absence of its then-president, Bernard Revel.
In 1923 he moved to Jerusalem. He opposed the Palestine partition plan in 1937, and of the British White Paper of 1939, he advocated civil disobedience and non-cooperation by the Jews with the British.
He was president of the Talmudical Encyclopedia, on the board of directors of the Mizrachi Bank, the founder and editor of Hatzofeh in Tel Aviv in 1939, and authored:
Fun Volozhin biz Yerushalayim (autobiography) in 2 volumes (in Yiddish, NYC in 1933; in Hebrew, Tel Aviv, 1939-40)
Bishvil ha-Techiah (Tel Aviv, 1940)
Raban shel Yisrael (NYC, 1943)
Along with Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, he was also the editor of the Talmudical Encyclopedia Volume I (Jerusalem, 1946) and Volume II (published posthumously in 1949). He wrote articles on Talmudic subjects for various periodicals and died in Jerusalem, Israel, on April 17, 1949.
Moshe Ostrovsky (Hameiri) (1886–1947), rabbi and Mizrachi leader in Erez Israel. Born in Karlin, Belorussia, Hameiri settled in Erez Israel in 1897. He studied at yeshivot in Jerusalem and was ordained by Hayyim Berlin and A. I. Kook, becoming rabbi of the Ekron settlement in 1912. Active from his youth in the Mizrachi movement, in 1919 he became one of the chief planners and organizers of the religious school system in Palestine. Hameiri taught Talmud at the Mizrachi Teachers' Seminary in Jerusalem. He was a member of the Va'ad Le'ummi executive, heading its department of local religious communities. Hameiri helped to organize the Chief Rabbinate in Palestine and was one of the founders of the Kiryat Moshe quarter in west Jerusalem. His books include Ha-Middot she-ha-Torah Nidreshet Bahen ("The Principles by Which the Torah is Expounded," 1924), Mevo ha-Talmud ("Introduction to the Talmud," 1935), a textbook for schools and teachers' seminaries, Toledot ha-Mizrachi be-Erez Yisrael ("The History of Mizrachi in Erez Israel," 1944), and Irgun ha-Yishuv ha-Yehudi be-Erez Yisrael ("The Organization of the Jewish Yishuv in Erez Israel," 1942).
Shlomo Zalman Shragai (Hebrew: זלמן שרגאי, 1899–1995) was an Israeli politician and Jerusalem's first elected mayor.
Shragai was born into an Polish Orthodox Jewish family in Gorzkowice in 1899. He then became active in the religious Zionist movement and settled in Palestine in 1924, already playing an important political role before Israel's founding in 1948. In 1950, he was elected mayor of Jerusalem, a position he held for two years. He then became the head of immigration of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. This was a time of extensive immigration to Israel from Muslim countries, so he often went on clandestine trips to these countries to obtain the release of the Jews living there.
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