Bnei Brak

Bnei Brak (or Bene Beraq) (, , "Sons of Lightning") is a city in Israel, on the central coastal strip, just east of Tel Aviv, and part of the metropolis known as Gush Dan, the Tel Aviv District.

Population

The city has a population of about 142,300 residents, most of whom are Haredi Jews. It also has the largest population density of any city in Israel, with 20,076 persons per sq. km.

It is a very large center for Orthodox Jews. Of the city's 160,000 inhabitants, at least three-quarters are Haredi Jews. In the last election (2006) 80 % of the population voted for Haredi parties, 7% more for other religious parties. The non-religious population is located mainly in the northern part of the city. The religious part of the city is completely closed off to vehicular traffic during the Shabbat (from Friday night until Saturday night), all stores in the city are under rabbinical supervision, and not a single store is open during the Shabbat.

History and name

The city was founded in 1924 by Rabbi Yitzchak Gerstenkorn and a group of Polish Hasidim, and gained official recognition in 1950.

The famous 20th Century Rabbi, Avraham Yishayahu Karelitz (known as the Chazon Ish) settled there, and due to his presence the town greatly grew in numbers. Other famous Rabbis have lived in Bnei Brak such as Rabbi Yaakov Landa hou served as the cheif rabbi of bnei brak for 40 years (1936-1986) and the fact that bnei brak grew up as a religious city is on his behalf and hard work that he invested in the city, Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky (the Steipler Gaon), Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman and Rabbi Elazar Menachem Mann Shach. Currently famous Rabbis such as Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, Rabbi Nissim Karelitz, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkovits reside in Bnei Brak.

Bnei Brak is also a Hasidic center. Already in the early 1950s, the Vizhnitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Chaim Meir Hager, founded there a large neighborhood, and his son, Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager (the present Vizhnitzer Rebbe) succeeded him. Beginning in the 1960s, the Rebbes of the Ruzhin dynasty (Sadigura, Husiatin, Bohush), who had formely lived in Tel Aviv, moved to Bnei Brak. So did the Rebbe of Modzhitz. Unlike the former 4 rabbes of Gur, who lived on Jerusalem, the present Gerrer Rebbe (nominated 1996) is a Bnei Brak resident. Numerous other rebbes live in the city, among them the Rebbes of Nadvorne, Tchernobil, Machnovke, Srtikuv, Koydenov, Narol, Radzin, Shomrei-Emunim. Slonim-Schwarze, Kaliv, Zutshke, Permishlan, Trisk-Bnei-Brak, Biale-Bnei-Brak - to name only some of them.

Until the 1970s the Bnei Brak municipality was headed by Religious Zionist mayors. After Mayor Gottlieb of the National Religious Party was defeated, the Haredi (untra-Orthodox) parties came to power, and since then they govern the city. As the Haredim's part of the population grew, they demanded to close their neighborhoods for traffic on Shabbat (see above). When they demanded to close the main street (HaShomer St.), there was a discotion with the secular residents broke out, The Haredim won this battle, and their dominance in the city was strengthened.

In a rapid process, most of Bnei Brak's secular and Zionist Religious residents left it, and the city remained almost homogeneously Haredi. Names of streets that had had a Zionist connotation were changed and named after prominent Haredi figures, the most recent change being Herzl Street's renaming to HaRav Shach St. The Israeli flag is barely seen in Bnei Brak around the time of Israel's annual Independence Day celebrations. Bnei Brak soon became one of the two poorest cities in Israel. Even so, it strengthened its position as one of the greatest Torah centers, and the highest standarts of kosher supervision on food in the entire world, this all is being done by the cheif rabbi of bnei brak grand rabbi Moshe Landa hou is known in the entire world as the bigest specialist in kosher supervision and jewish law. rabbi landa started his rabbinic job after the passing of his father rabbi Yaakov Landa (see above) in 1986, he was experience in that feild of rabbinate allredy in the last years of his father when all the work was done threw him.

Historical Bnei Brak

Mentioned as one of the cities in the portion of the Tribe of Dan (Joshua 19:45), Bene-berak is famous in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 32b) as the seat of Rabbi Akiva's court, and in the Passover Haggadah as the site of the all-night Seder of Rabbi Akiva and his distinguished colleagues.

The city had an agricultural dimension as well, as appears from the account (Ketuvot 111b) of the sage Rami bar Yechezkel who declared that he understood the meaning of the Torah's description of the Land of Israel as a "land flowing with milk and honey" after witnessing a scene during a visit to Bene-berak. He observed goats grazing beneath fig trees. The honey oozing from the very ripe figs merged with the milk dripping from the goats and formed a stream of milk and honey.

1924 establishments | Cities in Israel | Orthodox Jewish communities

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Population

History and name

Historical Bnei Brak