Raphael Israeli

Dr. Mordechai Helfman Raphael Israeli

This volume sums up the extraordinary life of an extraordinary man. Dr. Mordechai Helfman was born and raised in Ukraine at the turn of the 20th century.

He started his academic training in medicine in Kiev. Due to the severe anti-Semitic persecutions there, he fled to Prague, where he was caught up by the winds of Zionism, which swept up Diaspora Jews, partly in response to the escalating pogroms.

Dr. Helfman returned to Kiev and then went to Berlin to complete his medical studies, specializing in ophthalmology, which prepared him for his Aliya (immigration to Mandatory Palestine), where that expertise was in demand.

He never relented on his intense Zionist activity, preparing an entire generation to join the meager Jewish Yishuv under the British Mandate (1924), with a view to ultimately create a solid Jewish entity that would in time lead to Jewish independence in a Jewish state.

With Jerusalem as his main base, he remained devoted to the UJA (United Jewish Appeal), spending most of his life until Israel was established raising funds throughout the world to encourage Aliya and collect funds for the Yishuv's development.

Only when Israel was founded in 1948 did he turn his full attention to his medical expertise, serving as a popular eye doctor in Jerusalem, yet never neglecting his commitment to fund-raising.



(About the Author)

Raphael Israeli has taught Islamic, Chinese, and Middle Eastern history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A graduate of Hebrew University in history and Arabic literature, he earned a Ph. D. in Chinese and Islamic history from the University of California, Berkeley. Now retired, he has been a Fellow of the Harry Truman Research Institute at Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Center since the 1970s. Is the author of over 80 books and 100 articles.
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