Religious Zionist Leaders OUR SERIES ON LEADERS WHO HAVE SHAPED RELIGIOUS ZIONISM OVER THE LAST 150 YEARS Rabbi Shmuel Chaim Landau hmuel Chaim Landau remains It was at this Congress he formulated population. To this end, he coined unique among the leaders and laid the foundations for the the phrase Torah VeAvoda, a phrase and originators of Religious Mizrachi Youth Movement – Tzeirei which became a byword for HaPoel SZionism. The impact he had on the Mizrachi, and was elected to the HaMizrachi and later the Bnei Akiva Mizrachi Movement far surpassed Central Committee. He became Youth Movement. Torah VeAvoda his shortened life span of 36 years. Editor of the Movement’s paper – signified the synthesis of three ideo- But more so, he is one of the very few HaKedem and went on to participate logical factors: Torah, Zionism and whose roots lie within the Chassidic in the 12th Zionist Congress. At the Socialism. community. He remained a devout 13th Congress, he was elected to the follower of Mezritch Chassidism Zionist General Council. From 1922 onward, Rabbi Landau ran (from the Kotzker Rebbe) all his life. the Mizrachi Movement in Poland. Indeed, it was from there that he He participated in many Zionist inherited his love for Eretz Yisrael. organizations but devoted most of The treatise Shalom Yerushalayim, his energies to encouraging aliyah written by Rebbe Yisrael MiPhilov, and establishing youth training pro- on the subject of Israel and the grams, to teach them modern agri- Redemption, was part of Kotzker cultural methods for their eventual education and an important influence settlement on kibbutzim in Eretz on Landau. Yisrael. At Mizrachi’s International World War I caught up with Rabbi Congress in 1925 in Vienna, he was Landau in Poland. He was first taken elected as a member of the board of hostage by the Germans and accused, the Pioneer Youth HaPoel HaMiz- convicted and sentenced to death rachi. To fulfill his obligations, he on the grounds he was an English and his family made aliyah the same spy. Managing to escape, he was year, settling in Jerusalem. He quickly taken captive by the returning Polish established himself as the leader of army and then accused of being a HaPoel HaMizrachi and published Bolshevist, but somehow managed many articles explaining the goals of to get some resident Poles to testify the Movement. However, the first two on his behalf, thereby assuring his Not only did Rabbi Landau almost years of his directorship were mostly freedom. single-handedly bring the Mizrachi devoted to bringing together two The rise of virulent antisemitism Youth Movement into existence, he opposing factions in the party. With- with the emergence of the Balfour kept it responsive to its members. out his dedication to the principle of Declaration in 1917 influenced him Through it, he was able to bring shalom bayit, the Movement could deeply and he immediately joined much-needed changes into the bur- well have split in two. In 1928, Rabbi the Polish Mizrachi Movement set geoning Mizrachi so it would stay Landau suddenly took ill as the result up after World War I. In 1919, he attuned to the emerging second gen- of exhaustion and died at the young attended the Second Polish Mizrachi eration of Religious Zionists, whose age of 36. The Landau Forest near Sde Congress and was invited to Warsaw priority became the settling of Eretz Ya’akov and Kiryat Shmuel, a suburb in 1921 for the Mizrachi Convention. Yisrael by a significant religious of Haifa, are named in his memory. | 47.