Rabbi Aryeh Leib Frumkin

R. Aryeh Leib Frumkin (1845–1916), rabbinical scholar and writer; Zionist, pioneer of Jewish settlement in Petach Tikvah, Erez Israel. R. Frumkin studied rabbinics in his native Kelme, Lithuania, and at the Slobodka Yeshivah. He visited Erez Israel in 1867, and after two years in Odessa, returned to Jerusalem in 1871. There he began research for a history of the rabbis and scholars of Jerusalem, Toledot Hakhmei Yerushalayim (Vilna, 1874; ed. by E. Rivlin, Jerusalem, 1928–30, repr. 1969, with biography and index).

R. Frumkin's account of his first visit to Jerusalem, Massa Even Shemu'el (1871), gives important source material on conditions in Erez Israel at the time.

Returning to Lithuania, R. Frumkin was ordained a rabbi and took a rabbinical post at Ilukste, Latvia. After the 1881 pogroms, Frumkin participated, representing Hovevei Zion, in the consultations held in Germany to consider the plight of Russian Jewry.

There he advocated settlement in Erez Israel as a solution, opposing emigration to the United States. With the financial support of Emil Lachman, a wealthy Berlin Jew, he bought land in Petah Tikvah, built the first house there, and began a heroic ten-year period as a farmer-scholar, braving malaria and other dangers, establishing a talmud torah and a small yeshivah, and persuading more settlers to move there from Yehud. Lachman eventually refused to continue endowing the enterprise and R. Frumkin was compelled to leave the settlement.

In 1894 he went to London and was active in Jewish life in the East End. He established a wine business, using the income to return to Erez lsrael in 1911, where he lived first in Jerusalem and then returned to Petah Tikvah.

Bio

Apart from Toledot Hakhmei Yerushalayim, History of the rabbis and scholars of Jerusalem 1590-1870 by R. Aryeh Leib Frumkin (1845–1916), R. Frumkin's main contribution to Jewish scholarship is his edition of Seder Rav Amram (of R. Amram ben Sheshna) which he published as a large siddur (from an Oxford Ms.), with a commentary and notes (Jerusalem, 1910–12).

He also published a biographical sketch of his uncle, R. Elias b. Jacob, called Toledot Eliyahu (1900), a Passover Haggadah (with Gei Hizzayon commentary, 1913), and an edition of the Book of Esther with two commentaries (1893).

‫אריה ליב פרומקין‬‎ was a rabbi, Zionist, a founder and pioneer of Petah Tikva, the first yishuv created in the pre-state of Israel. He also was an author of halachic texts, a teacher, and operator of a wine shop, L. Frumkin and Company.

He was Born in Kelmė, Lithuania in 1845. He made aliyah to Palestine during the First Aliyah in 1883. While there he founded the settlement of Petah Tikva in which he built the first house there and helped to drain the malaria-ridden swamps. His planting of the first tree there is emblazoned on the seal of the municipality and there is a street named after him.

He moved to London, England in 1893 after an Arab attack on Petah Tikva. In London's East End he operated a family wine shop.

After returning to Petah Tikvah he died and was buried there in 1916. He was the great-grandfather of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the current Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom.

• ‏Seder Rav Amram haSholem Vol 1
• ‏Seder Rav Amram haSholem Vol 2
• Kedushas haTalmud
• Korbonen Shel Yisroel
• Frumkin Family Website
• Biography
• Frumkin Shop Story
• Seder Rav 'Amram ha-shalem (1921)

Photo: The Biographer, Aryeh Leib Frumkin ‪"Where heaven touches earth: Jewish life in Jerusalem from Medieval times" By Dovid Rossoff - page 360

http://www.tidhar.tourolib.org/tidhar/view/2/572