Who Put the Zvi in Tirat Zvi?
- Gedaliah Borvick
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Kibbutz Tirat Zvi holds a special place in my heart. In 1984, I spent an unforgettable month of Nissan working there, gaining an insider’s view of a community steeped in history and purpose.
Located in the Beit She’an Valley, just west of the Jordan border, Tirat Zvi was established in 1937 as part of the “tower and stockade” movement. This initiative was a strategic response to the British Mandate government’s attempts to appease the Arabs by limiting Jewish population growth during the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt. Exploiting a legal loophole, pioneers would arrive at dawn with prefabricated materials and assemble an entire settlement by sundown. Once the roof was up, the British could not demolish it. Nearly fifty of these settlements were built in this dramatic fashion, asserting Jewish presence and offering protection during a tumultuous time.
Like many of these settlements, Tirat Zvi’s name carried symbolic meaning. Tirat Zvi - “Zvi’s Castle” or “Fort Zvi” - honors Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (1795–1874), an early leader of religious Zionism. More than a dozen streets across Israel also bear his name. Rabbi Kalischer championed immigration and resettlement in the Land of Israel, and laid the foundation that inspired the Hovevei Zion movement and ultimately Theodor Herzl’s Zionist vision.
Rabbi Kalischer was a student of some of the greatest rabbinic scholars of his time, including Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Rav Yaakov of Lissa, known as The Nesivos. He spent his life in Prussia, serving as the communal rabbi in Thorn, where he devoted himself to studying, teaching, and writing on a broad range of Jewish issues.
Unlike many contemporaries who counseled waiting passively for the Messiah, Rabbi Kalischer advocated for proactive resettlement of the Land of Israel. Citing rabbinic sources, he argued that the redemption of Zion would begin through human efforts to reclaim the land, with divine miracles following in its wake.
His vision was threefold: (1) to provide a homeland for Eastern European Jewry, (2) to transform the barren and neglected land of Israel into a fertile, self-sustaining economy, and (3) to enable Jews to fulfill mitzvot hatluyot ba’aretz, the commandments unique to the Land of Israel.
Rabbi Kalischer’s ideas were met with enthusiasm, and his writings were translated into multiple languages, inspiring the creation of several organizations, including the Association for the Settlement in Eretz Israel. One of the most notable fruits of his advocacy was the establishment of the Mikveh Yisrael Agricultural School in Palestine in 1870. Rabbi Kalischer was invited to serve as the spiritual leader of the school, but his doctors forbade him from making the journey to Eretz Israel due to health concerns. Nevertheless, he remained an active advocate for the settlement of the land until his passing in 1874.
Kibbutz Tirat Zvi has flourished over the decades and become an economic powerhouse. It operates a meat-processing factory whose products are sold worldwide, is one of Israel’s largest date-palm growers — renowned globally for its Medjool dates and thriving lulav business — and also cultivates crops such as wheat and cotton.
How fitting that Kibbutz Tirat Zvi, the first religious kibbutz in Israel, was named after a man who dedicated his life to promoting the ideals of Torah and cultivating the Land of Israel. Today, over 150 years after his passing, Kibbutz Tirat Zvi continues to thrive as a living testament to Rabbi Kalischer’s vision and values.
Gedaliah Borvick is the founder of My Israel Home, a real estate agency focused on helping people from abroad buy and sell homes in Israel. To sign up for his monthly market updates, contact him at gborvick@gmail.com. Please visit his blog at www.myisraelhome.com.