From Dreams to Reality: Rabbi Fromkin's Pioneering Journey in Petach Tikva

Rabbi Aryeh Leib Fromkin was born in the Lithuanian town of Kelm, and was a student of Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor, the leader of Lithuanian Jewry at the time. His uncle was Rabbi Eliyahu Regelor, author of Yad Eliyahu. His father immigrated to the Land of Israel in his old age and passed away there.

Rabbi Aryeh Leib traveled to his father’s grave and explored the Land of Israel extensively. It was the year 1871. Upon arriving at the Mount of Olives in search of his father's grave, he saw that many of the tombstones were neglected and obscured, so he began documenting the ancient tombstones. He returned to Lithuania, where he took up the rabbinical position in the town of Aleksotas in the Kovno district and worked among other things on publishing his research on the sages of Jerusalem buried at the Mount of Olives.

From there, Rabbi Aryeh Leib traveled through European cities seeking support for the settlement enterprise in the Land of Israel. He found several supporters, and with their help purchased a plot of land from the villagers of Mulabbis. The land was considered cursed by the local Arabs due to its proximity to the Yarkon River swamps, which spread diseases among the inhabitants who had long since abandoned it. Rabbi Aryeh Leib set up a winery and an agricultural farm there, but due to fear of diseases, he didn't dare sleep there. Every morning, he would walk three hours from his home in Yehud to the winery and farm. This was in 1884.

After several months, Rabbi Aryeh Leib decided to build a house in Mulabbis. He did so, constructing a two-story house surrounded by a stone fence. Other landowners were astonished by his actions and doubted his survival... But after a few months, more people joined him. Rabbi Zerah Barnett (who was also one of the founders of the Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem) also built a large stone house. Both families moved to the new settlement, which was named Petach Tikva, and they survived.

Rabbi Aryeh Leib established a school where Torah and general education were taught. The school operated seven days a week, and its students were also responsible for the agricultural farm. The program was set up under the guidance of Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor from Kovno. A number of guards from the colony were assigned to protect the school, the farm, the winery, and the settlers' homes. Wandering Arabs would send their herds to graze in the colony's fields, and the guards would drive them away, including various robbers.

In 1886, the guards again encountered an Arab herd brazenly grazing in the colony's wheat fields and destroying the crops. One of the guards was a particularly colorful character named Sander Haddad, a heroic figure. He immigrated from Bialystok and was known as Haddad, an Arabic term for blacksmith, his profession. Seeing the herders, he confiscated the herd. A contemporary writer described Sander Haddad: "Tall, sturdily built, and swift as the wind, Skander was his nickname among the Arabs. He was splendid to behold as he burst into battle atop his noble steed, upright and swift as an arrow. Into the throng of attackers, he would charge like a storm, striking left and right. He did not favor firearms. From his youth, he was unpracticed in firearms, relying entirely on the strength of his arms alone. His arms were of iron, and when he struck his enemies’ heads – they fell like grass before the sickle."

The Arabs decided to rid themselves once and for all of the fearsome Jewish guards, especially of Sander. They waited for the morning when almost all of the settlement's residents left for Jaffa to deliver the confiscated herd to the authorities and file a complaint against the herd's owners. Sheikh Othman from the village of Yahudiya (today Rosh Haayin) set out with five hundred men to destroy the young colony, which at that time had only women, children, and very few men.

The noise made by the five hundred villagers armed with hunting rifles and pitchforks was well heard in the colony. One of the men leaped onto the road north to call for help from the authorities in Jaffa, while the others gathered everyone in the colony into Rabbi Fromkin’s house, a stone building secured with iron doors. Sander Haddad was not in the colony at that time, and his mother Rachel Levi did not manage to reach Rabbi Fromkin’s house. The rioters brutally attacked her, and she died within a few days. Rabbi Fromkin himself, who urged everyone to enter his house and went among the homes to ensure no one was left outside, was unable to reach the house. The rioters captured him and brutally beat him. Finally, they left him when they thought he was dead. Only after the end of the riots was he found, and managed to recover and return to himself.

The rioters were unable to break into Rabbi Fromkin’s house until reinforcements arrived from Jaffa. The ringleaders were arrested and punished with lashes in the town square. The owners of the encroaching herd were fined, and the Jews received compensation. It is important to remember that the land belonged to wealthy Jews like Baron Rothschild, and the authorities feared their response.

Rabbi Fromkin continued his endeavors, but at some point, he was unable to secure funding to continue the project. He went to Europe on a mission, and the school, unfortunately, closed. After years of Torah study worldwide and authoring various books on Torah law and knowledge of the land, he returned again in his old age to Petach Tikva, which was by then an actual town. He passed away peacefully and was buried in the Segula Cemetery.