The only one who didn’t sign the letter was Dr. [Bernard] Revel, and I think it’s probably because he didn’t approve.
What was the logic behind teaching in ivris and not ivrit?
The great Hebraists throughout the world spoke in ivris because it was lashon ashkenazis. That’s the way people read Chumash and davened. Many Hebraists felt that was the real Hebrew.
Can you speak a bit about your grandfather, Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlop? He was a close student of Rav Kook, correct?
My grandfather was a great tzaddik and gaon….
When the state was established, gedolim went to Ben-Gurion and asked him not to draft women and, later, yeshiva bachrim. If you read history books, they’ll name all the gedolim who [supposedly convinced Ben-Gurion to leave women and yeshiva bachurim alone]. But the truth of the matter is that he rejected them. It was only because of my grandfather who came to him and cried.
Wasn’t it the Chazon Ish who convinced Ben-Gurion?
According to a new biography about my grandfather that just came out, the Chazon Ish asked my grandfather to go to Ben-Gurion. It’s in the [official record] of the Knesset. When Ben-Gurion said he’s making these exemptions, his own party asked, “What’s going on here?” Ben-Gurion said in the Knesset: “I did it only for Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlop.”
Why would he do it for your grandfather?
Because my grandfather loved all Jews and was a lover of Eretz Yisrael.
How close was your grandfather to Rav Kook?
He was a talmid chaver. He was the only one in the room when Rav Kook died, and he gave an initial hesped when they were metaher Rav Kook’s body….
They wrote amazing letters to each other. Someone once publicly called my zaidie a talmid chaver of Rav Kook, so my zaidie wrote to Rav Kook, saying, “I apologize, I never said to anybody that I’m, chas v’chalilah, your talmid chaver. How could I even dream of being your talmid – let alone your talmid chaver?” And Rav Kook wrote back, “How could I say that you’re my talmid? You’re my chaver.”
How did your grandfather become Rav Kook’s talmid?
He was haredi, completely haredi, like all the other Yerushalmim. He was considered a tzaddik when he was 20, 25 years old.
His father came to Eretz Yisrael in 1842 or 1843 as part of one of the last waves of [aliyah by] the Vilna Gaon’s students. My great-grandfather was one of the dayanim of Reb Yehoshua Leib Diskin, who was the greatest rav of his time. They say that whenever Rav Chaim Soloveitchik and the Beis HaLevi saw a piece of Torah of Reb Yehoshua Leib, they would begin to shake. We can’t even imagine that today.
When my grandfather was a bachur, from the age of 12 and on, he worked with Reb Yehoshua Leib, helping him mesader his writings because Reb Yehoshua Leib was already nearly blind.
My grandfather was known as one of the great iluyim of Yerushalayim, maybe the greatest. He got semicha from the Ridvaz, and the Ridvaz said he could be the rabbi in the greatest Jewish cities in the world. This was when my zaidie was in his early 20s.
If he was so haredi, how did he become close to Rav Kook?
When he was very young, he used to learn so hard that he wasn’t well and the doctor told him to go to Yaffo. So he went. It was the year, or the year after, Rav Kook came from Europe, and they had big signs on the walls of Yaffo that Rav Kook was speaking between Minchah and Ma’ariv. My zaidie debated with himself whether he should go because everybody said Rav Kook was too modern.