Bnei Brak
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| Hebrew | בְּנֵי בְּרַק |
| Government | City |
| District | Tel Aviv |
| Population | 142,300<ref name="Population">CBS end of 2004 population figures.</ref> |
| Jurisdiction | 7,088 dunams (7 km²) |
Bnei Brak (or Bene Beraq) (Hebrew: בְּנֵי בְּרַק, Bəne Bəraq, "Sons of Lightning") is a city in Israel, on the central coastal strip, just east of Tel Aviv, and part of the metropolis known as Gush Dan, the Tel Aviv District.
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[edit] Population
The city has a population of about 144,800 (30.12.2005) residents, the majority of whom are Haredi Jews. It also has the largest population density of any city in Israel, with 20,076 persons per sq. km.
It is a very large center for Orthodox Jews. Of the city's 144,800 inhabitants, at least three-quarters are Haredi Jews. In the last national election (2006), 80% of the voters chose Haredi parties, 7% more for other religious parties. While the city does not have an official 'religious' status, the migration and development of the population has led to two distinct sections: The northern part of the city as well as the extremities have a significant non-religious minority population while the core of the city is almost entirely religious. While this religious population used to be mainly Modern Orthodox/Religious Zionist]], it is now primarily Haredi. A large part of this religious part of the city is completely closed off to vehicular traffic during the Shabbat (from sundown Friday night until sundown Saturday night), virtually all stores in the city are under some form of rabbinical supervision, many having multiple supervisory organizations, and not a single store is open during the Shabbat.
[edit] Modern history
Bnei Brak was founded in 1924 by Rabbi Yitzchak Gerstenkorn and a group of Polish Hasidim, and gained official recognition in 1950.
The famous 20th Century rabbi, Avraham Yishayahu Karelitz (known as the Chazon Ish) settled in the village (at the time), and many owe the town's rapid increase in numbers due to his presence. Many see the efforts of Rabbi Yaakov Landau, who served as the chief rabbi of Bnei Brak for 40 years (1936-1986), as instrumental in the fact that Bnei Brak developed into an important religious city. Other famous Rabbis who have lived Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky (the Steipler Gaon), Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman and Rabbi Elazar Menachem Mann Shach. Currently famous Rabbis who reside in Bnei Brak are Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, Rabbi Nissim Karelitz, Rabbi Shmuel Vozner, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz. Image:IM001264.jpg Bnei Brak is also a Hasidic center. Already in the early 1950s, the Vizhnitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Chaim Meir Hager, founded a large neighborhood, and his son, Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager (the present Vizhnitzer Rebbe) succeeded him. Beginning in the 1960s, the Rebbes of the Ruzhin dynasty (Sadigura, Husiatin, Bohush), who had formely lived in Tel Aviv, moved to Bnei Brak. So did the Rebbe of Modzhitz. Unlike the former four Gerrer rabbis who lived on Jerusalem, its present rebbe (nominated 1996) is a Bnei Brak resident. Numerous other rebbes live in the city, among them the Rebbes of Nadvorne, Tchernobil, Machnovke, Srtikuv, Koydenov, Narol, Radzin, Shomrei-Emunim. Slonim-Schwarze, Kaliv, Zutshke, Permishlan, Trisk-Bnei-Brak, Biale-Bnei-Brak - to name only some of them.
Until the 1970s, the Bnei Brak municipality was headed by Religious Zionist mayors. After Mayor Gottlieb of the National Religious Party was defeated, the Haredi parties rose to power, and since then they have governed the city. As the Haredi part of the population grew, they demanded for public religious stringincies increased and more residents requested to close their neighborhoods from vehicular traffic on the Shabbat. When they demanded to close a main street (HaShomer St. now Kahaneman St.), the non-religious residents protested but the religious won the battle, and since then, their dominance in the city was has been strengthened.
In a rapid process, most of Bnei Brak's secular and Zionist Religious residents migrated elsewhere, and the city has become almost homogeneously Haredi. Names of streets that had had a Zionist connotation were changed and named after prominent Haredi figures, the most recent and final change being the renaming of Herzl St. to HaRav Shach St. The Israeli flag is barely seen in Bnei Brak around the time of Israel's annual Independence Day celebrations, since the State of Israel is seen as a secular entity. Bnei Brak soon became one of the two poorest cities in Israel. It strengthened its position as one of the great Torah centers and the highest standards of kosher supervision on food. The current chief rabbi of Bnei Brak, Moshe Landau is renowned as an expert specialist in kosher supervision and Jewish law. Rabbi Moshe Landau took office after the death of his father, Chief Rabbi Yaakov Landau in 1986.
[edit] The origin of Bnei Brak
Mentioned as one of the cities in the portion of the Tribe of Dan (Joshua 19:45), Bene-berak is famous in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 32b) as the seat of Rabbi Akiva's court, and in the Passover Haggadah as the site of the all-night Seder of Rabbi Akiva and his distinguished colleagues.
The city had an agricultural dimension as well, as appears from the account (Ketuvot 111b) of the sage Rami bar Yechezkel who declared that he understood the meaning of the Torah's description of the Land of Israel as a "land flowing with milk and honey" after witnessing a scene during a visit to Bene-berak. He observed goats grazing beneath fig trees. The honey oozing from the very ripe figs merged with the milk dripping from the goats and formed a stream of milk and honey.
The ancient Bene-berak was not in the same location as the current namesake.
[edit] References
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ca:Bené-Beracde:Bnei Berak fr:Bnei Brak he:בני ברק nl:Bene Beraq pl:Bnei Brak pt:Bene Beraque yi:בני ברק ru:Бней Брак
