ḤAVAẒẒELET

ḤAVAẒẒELET (Heb. חֲבַצֶּלֶת), Hebrew newspaper, first published in Jerusalem in 1863, discontinued after approximately one year, revived at the end of 1870, and continued until close to the outbreak of World War i. Founded by Israel Bak, a pioneer of the Hebrew press, Ḥavaẓẓelet began publication after *Ha-Levanon on July 13, 1863 in the wake of a controversy which broke out in Jerusalem concerning the affairs of the EẓḤayyim school. It opposed the position taken by Ha-Levanon, its journalistic rival. So fierce was the dispute that both papers were forced to discontinue publication in 1864. When Ḥavaẓẓelet resumed publication in 1870, Bak's son-in-law, I.D. Frumkin, gradually moved into the editorial staff, and soon became its editor. In the last years of the paper his son Gad Frumkin also served as editor.

The paper was the organ of the Hasidim, who were a minority among the general Ashkenazi yishuv in Jerusalem, mainly composed of Mitnaggedim. Havazzelet opposed the leadership of the Ashkenazi yishuv and supported the programs for the settlement of Israel (see S. *Berman, Rabbi J. *Alkalai) which were opposed by Ashkenazi rabbis of Jerusalem. In 1873 it launched an attack against the controllers of the ḥalukkah funds and those countered with a boycott against Ḥavaẓẓelet and its editor. Frumkin advocated the "productivization" of the Jewish community in Israel, especially by means of agriculture, and opposed Sir Moses Montefiore's programs because of his excessive sympathy for those in charge of the halukkah. He encouraged young forces from among the members of the yishuv to participate in the newspaper.

Ḥavaẓẓelet appeared originally as a monthly, and from the second copy of the second year as a weekly, continuing as such for several decades. Only in its last years was the format enlarged, and the paper was published three times a week (1908–10); in the end it was printed again as a weekly. In 1870–71 a Yiddish supplement (Die Roze) came out. The literary supplement was called Pirḥei Ḥavaẓẓelet. In 1882, under the editorship of A.M. Luncz, there was published a foreign language supplement called Gazette de Jerusalem, and in 1884, the supplement Mevasseret Ẓiyyon appeared under the editorship of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.

After the pogroms in Russia in the beginning of the 1880s the paper advocated aliyah and encouraged the first immigrants to settle on the land of PetaḤ Tikvah. With the arrival of the first wave of aliyah from Russia and from Yemen, the paper endeavored to ease their absorption both in agricultural work and in Jerusalem. Frumkin invited Ben-Yehuda to Jerusalem from Paris to work on the ḥavaẓẓelet. Ben-Yehuda's publication of his own independent newspaper, Ha-Ẓevi in the autumn of 1884, gave rise to an antagonism between Ha-Ẓevi and Ḥavaẓẓelet. Ḥavaẓẓelet soon became the mouthpiece of the older generation of the yishuv in Jerusalem, while Ha-ḥevi supported the new yishuv, especially the agricultural villages. The former, which in the beginning had been in opposition to the ḥalukkah, now became its loyal supporter. It now rejected the program of enlightenment that it had advocated in the 1870s, turned against the modernists of the yishuv, and later opposed political Zionism.

Gad Frumkin tried to revive the flagging spirit of the Ḥavaẓẓelet at the beginning of the present century, but his energy was curbed by his father. While this newspaper died out, a new press with an entirely different direction rose in its place. Ḥavaẓẓelet nevertheless raised a generation of writers and scholars, mainly from the old yishuv, who later filled distinguished positions in literature, science, and public life in Jerusalem and Ereẓ Israel. In 1954 a selection of the writings of I.D. Frumkin from the volumes of the Ḥavaẓẓelet, together with a comprehensive introduction and comments, was published in Jerusalem.

bibliography:

G. Kressel, "Ha-Levanon" ve-"Ha-Ḥavaẓẓelet" (1943); idem, Toledot ha-Ittonut ha-Ivrit be-Ereẓ Yisrael (1964; see cap. 1); G. Yardeni, Ha-Ittonut ha-Ivrit be-Ereẓ Yisrael bi-Shenot 1863–1904 (1969), 17–81, 107–162; A. Frumkin, In Friling fun Idishn Sotsialism (1940); G. Frumkin, Derekh Shofet bi-Yrushalayim (1955); D. Idelovitch (ed.), Koveẓ Ma'amarim le-Divrei Yemei ha-Ittonut be-Ereẓ Yisrael, 2 (1936), 28–38; S. Ha-Levi, Ha-Sefarim ha-Ivriyyim she-Nidpesu bi-Yrushalayim (1963).

[Getzel Kressel]