Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan
Rabbi Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan) was born in 1880 in the town of Volozhin, the youngest son from the second marriage of his elderly father, the Netziv of Volozhin, who was the head of the famous yeshiva of Volozhin. Meir studied in the yeshiva until the age of fourteen, when he was orphaned from his father. He then moved to the Telz Yeshiva, to learn from Rabbi Eliezer Gordon, and later also from Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk and Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of Arukh HaShulchan. In 1902 he married Beila, daughter of Rabbi Tuvia Rabinowitz.
In 1905, he served as a delegate to the Seventh Zionist Congress in Basel, as the representative of the Zionists in Ashmyany, Russia. This was an early sign of his involvement with Zionism in general and the Mizrachi movement in particular. He later moved to Berlin, where he founded and edited the Haivri newspaper, which served as a platform for the ideas of the religious Zionist stream. His work at the newspaper earned him a reputation as a clear thinker, a talented journalist and an excellent organizer. In 1912 he was appointed secretary of the world Mizrachi movement, a position from which he retired due to the First World War, which forced him to immigrate to the United States. There he chaired the first American Mizrachi Convention. In 1914 he established the American branch of Mizrachi, and from 1915-1926 he served as president of the U.S. Mizrachi.
In 1911, he received an offer to serve as rabbi of Petach Tikvah and consulted Rabbi Kook on whether to accept the proposal.
In 1924 he made his first visit to Israel, and in 1926 he immigrated to the country and settled in Jerusalem, where he held several key posts, including the secretary of the world Mizrachi movement. He served as head of the Zionist General Council and was a member of the Provisional State Council. From 1942 to 1944 he served as Co-Chairman of the Jewish National Fund.
In 1942, Rabbi Bar-Ilan founded two monumental Torah projects:
1) The Encyclopedia Talmudit - a vast undertaking which involves gathering, summarizing and processing the entire world of Jewish law.
2) The Institute for the Complete Israeli Talmud - a Torah institute whose crowning glory is the publication of the Mishnah and Babylonian Talmud with textual variations and edited versions of the classical commentaries.
In his last years, Rabbi Bar-Ilan devoted most of his time and energy to these two projects. He appointed Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin zt”l as chief editor of the encyclopedia, and together they edited the first two volumes.
In 1946, after the Black Sabbath, a temporary administration was set up by the Jewish Agency in Israel, on which Rabbi Bar-Ilan served together with Levi Eshkol and Zalman Shazar.
Rabbi Bar-Ilan passed away on April 18, 1949, and was buried in the Sanhedria Cemetery. To his last day he was active in public life; a few hours before his death he delivered a final speech about Jerusalem, declaring that the city must not be severed from the body of the state.
In 1955, Bar-Ilan University was founded under the inspiration of his unique path. Its founders, the Mizrachi leaders of the United States, decided to call the university after Rabbi Bar-Ilan as a token of gratitude for his work on behalf of religious Zionist Jewry in their country. The Netiv Meir High School Yeshiva, also named after him, was established two years earlier, in 1953. The Beit Meir settlement in the Jerusalem Corridor is likewise named for him. Furthermore, there are streets bearing his name in Jerusalem and in many cities in Israel, and many religious schools are named after him.