This portrait of Rev Meir Berlin (1880-1949) is one of 17 drawings that Frantisek Reichental did of participants at the 14th Zionist Congress, held in Vienna in 1925.
Rav Berlin was born in Volozhin, Russia, the son of the Netziv (Rabbi Naphtali Zevi Judah Berlin), one of the great sages in Jewish history. He attended the 7th Zionist Congress in 1905 and from that point on dedicated his life to the development of the Mizrachi party.
Mizrachi is the religious Zionist movement founded in 1902 (the word Mizrachi is an acronym of Merkaz Ruhani or spiritual centre). The movement believes that the Torah should be at the centre of Zionism and also sees Jewish nationalism as a means of achieving religious objectives.
Rav Berlin advocated for Zionism and for the inclusion of religious factions within the broader Zionist movement. He understood that the spiritual composition of the Jewish state would be determined by the participation of the religious community in building the land itself. From 1920, he was recognized as the world leader of the Mizrachi movement.
In 1923, he moved to Jerusalem from New York where he had settled nine years earlier. He founded a daily newspaper, initiated an encyclopedia which summarized topics in the Talmud, and served on the boards of the Mizrachi Bank, Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency. He saw the realization of his dream when the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948.
Rav Berlin Hebraicized his surname to Bar-Ilan, and Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, which opened in 1955, is named in his memory. It was the initiative of the Mizrachi movement in the United States which envisioned a university that combines Jewish values and academic excellence. Today, the university has 20,000 students who study in nine faculties and 52 departments.
