Hashomer Member Eliezer Krol and Jewish-Yemenite Immigrants in Kiryat Shmona, 1949-1950

Authors

  • Amir Goldstein Tel-Hai Academic College Author

Keywords:

Eliezer Krol, Yemenite Jews, Kiryat Shmona, Hashomer, Periphery, Relations between Veteran Residents and New Immigrants, New Jewish Consciousness, Jewish Tradition, Tradition

Abstract

Eliezer Krol, a member of Kibbutz Kfar Giladi and veteran of the Hashomer defense organization, was the state-appointed administrator of the newly established settlement of Kfar Halsa (Kiryat Shmona) in July 1949 whose first residents were mainly immigrants from Yemen. The article’s sources, Krol’s diary and letters written by the first settlers, describe the complex relationship between Israel’s veteran population and and the newcomers, that eventually forced Krol to leave the settlement that he labored so hard to establish. The affair shows that Krol and his generation who applied their time and energy to revolutionizing Jewish consciousness lacked the ability to respect and be attuned to the Yemenite immigrants’ devotion to their traditional culture and belief in religious redemption. The immigrant group was strong, united, stubborn, and loyal to its cultural agenda. The Yemenite founders of Kiryat Semona refused to cave in to the intense pressure to abandon their own form of Jewish culture.

Published

2015-12-01

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Hashomer Member Eliezer Krol and Jewish-Yemenite Immigrants in Kiryat Shmona, 1949-1950. (2015). IYUNIM: Multidisciplinary Studies in Israeli and Modern Jewish Society, 25, 151-178. https://iyunim.bgu.ac.il/index.php/iyunim/article/view/296