Angels of Peace

Ben-Zion Hai Uziel

1919

For many years we have awaited your arrival on our soil. We waited, as we believed that your arrival fulfills our eminent, longing of millennia. To our great pleasure, the joyous day has arrived wherein your feet walk on the holy soil. Your eyes shall see the flourishing community of the People of Israel in our Land, and your ears shall hear the…

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Uziel delivered this speech in the summer of 1919 to members of the American King-Crane Commission to Palestine, which was investigating the territories of the (soon to be dissolved) Ottoman Empire.

Creator Bio

Ben-Zion Hai Uziel

1880–1953
Born in Jerusalem, Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel followed a long family legacy of joining the rabbinate; his father Yosef Raphael was the leader of the Sephardic rabbinic court. In 1911, Ben-Zion was appointed the chief Sephardic rabbi of Jaffa, a position he held until he was exiled by the Turkish authorities to Damascus during World War I. He served as chief rabbi of Salonika (1921–1923), Tel Aviv (1923–1938), and eventually as chief Sephardic rabbi of Mandate Palestine and then of the State of Israel (1939–1953). He was an active Zionist, a supporter of women’s suffrage, and a prolific writer, publishing many volumes of rabbinic responsa and homiletics, as well as essays on contemporary Jewish life. He was particularly concerned with the question of the conversion of non-Jews to Judaism and issued rulings that were markedly compassionate and inclusive.

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