More than one hundred fifty years ago, before the invention of the car or airplane, it was rare to find a single woman attempt to travel the long dangerous journey from Europe to Eretz Yisroel by herself. Yet In 1856, a thirty-two year old single Jewish woman did just that. Flora the daughter of Rabbi Meir Randegger, a Talmid Chochom and leading Torah educationist in Trieste, made the trip all alone from her native port city to Yerushalayim.
Flora had met many meshulachim in her Italian hometown, Trieste, which at that times was under the sovereignty of the Austrian empire. The meshulachim had come from Eretz Yisroel to raise money for the old Yishuv. It was through hearing their stories that she vicariously experienced the Kedusha of Eretz Yisroel. Because of her wish to visit the Holy Land, Flora’s father promised her that they would one day make the trip together and celebrate Pesach in Yerushalayim. Unfortunately it was not to be. Rabbi Randegger passed away three years earlier, in 1853, before the two would realize their dream. Not having met her Bashert in Europe, Flora decided to make the trip by herself to Eretz Yisroel in memory of her beloved father. Firstly, however, she had to recuperate from the cholera epidemic which had spread in Trieste in 1855. After recovering from the illness that plagued her a long time, she decided to make the journey.
Fellow passengers on board the ship sailing to Eretz Yisroel perceived Flora as a nun because of the tzniusdige way she was dressed and the fact that she did not socialize with anyone. She herself recorded in her travel journal which was originally written in Italian (and translated into Hebrew in 1982) as having “withdrawn from all vanities in the world.”
Flora’s diary in which she records the two journeys she made to Jerusalem is entitled in Italian “Da Trieste A Gerusalemme. Viaggi In Terrasanta Di Una Giovane Maestra Ebrea (1856, 1864). (From Trieste to Jerusalem, Voyage to the Holy Land of a Young Jewish Teacher(1856,1864) The Hebrew version is known as, Yoman Masʻotehah shel morah Yehudiyah mi-Triyesṭ liyerushalayim.The Diary of the Travels of a Jewish Teacher from Trieste to Jerusalem.
Nahida Remy Lazarus, the Proselyte (Giyoret) scholar and essayist from Berlin described Flora: “.. Her mind learned to soar higher. She felt the old longing of Judah’s daughters and Palestine became the dream of her nights and the vision of her days. Poor and distressed as she was, she set out for Jerusalem in spite of all obstacles.”
While traveling from Jaffa to Jerusalem, with her siddur in hand, Flora did not converse with anyone. She was on a high, spiritually because of her realization that she was treading on the same ground as our holy Avos and Imahos had. She writes she “rejoiced to set foot on the holy soil of our ancestral land, full of yearning for those desirable regions… The miraculous victories of the chosen people pass before us as they conquer the Land with the aid of Hashem.”.”
Flora writes in her journal about her being astonished that she actually had dared to make the dangerous trip alone : “At last I have come to where my desire led! I have come to Jerusalem! But how, all alone, have I dared so much?!”
And she describes her hope for the imminent arrival of Moshiach.
Flora’s trip paid off. Six months after her arrival in Yerushalayim, she married Jacob (Giacomo) Friedenberg, a Hungarian who was the grandson of the Chief Rabbi of Transylvania. It is interesting to note that Flora writes that she was under tremendous pressure in Jerusalem to get married. The Ashkenazi community had many Takkanos, one of which was unmarried males were forbidden to dwell in Jerusalem in order to ensure men’s moral conduct, and to guard the sanctity of the city. If unmarried men were not permitted to live in Jerusalem, one could imagine how a young single female was viewed. All Jerusalem parents married off their children when they reached puberty.
Flora’s wedding was graced with the presence of Sir Moses Montefiore and his wife Judith who had expressed an interest in Flora’s idealistic goal of becoming a teacher when the latter met the famous philanthropists.
Flora had a dream of opening a school in Jerusalem where she would teach limudei Kodesh as well as secular subjects including the study of European languages and agriculture….She believed she had an important mission. She writes: “Perhaps these lines will convey… at least some of the … enthusiasm that has almost consumed my soul, …I am a tool in the hand of Providence..to restore the glory of Israel and its Torah.”
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Flora was born on March 4,1824 in Trieste, to Rabbi and Mrs. Mayer Randegger. one of eight children, Her father who was 44 at the time of her birth came from a German Jewish family and had been born in Randegg, Germany. He was a Talmid Chochom who had studied in Lengnau (Switzerland), Furth (Bavaria) and at the yeshiva in Pressburg. He then taught in Vienna and later moved to Trieste where he married Flora’s mother, the daughter of the secretary of the Jewish community, a member of the Galligo family. Rabbi Meyer Randegger served as rabbi of the Ashkenazi shul in Trieste. From 1837 until 1847 he also taught in neighboring Fiume and Fiorenzola and substituted as rabbi in those two towns during temporary vacancies as a result of the deaths of the rabbis in each of these cities. Rabbi Randegger’s most famous Talmid was Rabbi Shmuel David Luzatto known by his acronym Shadal.
The Shadal’s great grandfather Rabbi Baruch Luzatto was a brother of the Ramchal, the author of Derech Hashem. Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Luzatto who was a prolific writer in Hebrew, Italian, German and French was a child prodigy who wrote a commentary on Sefer Iyov at the age of eight and three years later authored a Hebrew grammar book in Italian. He was a warm defender of Biblical and Talmudical Judaism from within the Wissenschaft des Judenthum and fought the Maskilim and the leaders of the Reform who were proposing to abandon circumcision. He translated the siddur and Chumash into Italian and fought those who claimed that chapters 40-66 of Sefer Yishayahu were not part of the original Sefer.
In Trieste Rabbi Randegger established a girls Jewish school in 1848 where he as well as his two daughters, Flora and Teresa taught limudei Kodesh and chol.
In 1851, an Italian translation of the Haggadah was published in Vienna. It is believed to be the first Italian translation to appear in Latin characters. There was no name on it and the public was unaware that the one who translated it was a woman, Flora Randegger.
Rachel Morpurgo the famous Jewish Trieste poetess and first cousin of the Shadal, revealed to the public that the translator was none other than Flora when Rachel’s poem honoring Rabbi Meyer Randegger was published in the 1853 Viennese Hebrew journal Kochvei Yitzchok. The revelation that the translation was done by a woman caused a great sensation in Jewish communities everywhere.
That same year the Italian translation of the Haggadah in Latin characters was published again but this time Flora Randegger’s name appeared as the translator.
In 1853 Flora also published two poems honoring the memory of her father in the Italian Jewish periodical L’Educatore Israelita (The Jewish Educator) in Vercelli, Italy.
The following year, Flora’s Italian commentaries on Tehillim were also published in the journal..
Flora was a prolific writer who composed poetry as well.
After her marriage in Jerusalem, she struggled financially and tried to help support her family by tutoring a few individual students. She and her husband lived in dire poverty.
A traveler to Jerusalem describes the city during that time:
“As one walked in a part of the city where the Jews lived… one’s heart ached and one’s spirit was moved to great pity, as one observed the sorry conditions in which throngs of Jewish families lived after having come here with mythical memories of the sanctity and magnificence of this city in ancient times. Any observer would be particularly shocked at the appearance of their living accommodations,which were like holes in the ground ….”
Another visitor writes: “The price of living accommodations in Jerusalem is beyond belief and impoverished Jewish families are paying very high rental fees for horrid homes, the kind which Jews in London would not have rented out for cattle or sheep…”
At that time the Jewish population of Jerusalem was a heterogeneous group composed of three types of Jews: Ashkenazi Jews, Mustaarbim — Arabic speaking Jews from North Africa and Sephardim who had been in the Holy Land since they had been expelled from the Iberian peninsula. These included many Kabbalists who first settled in Safed.
The Ashkenazim included descendants of Jews who emigrated from Russia and Poland after the Chemlnicki massacres which began in 1648, disciples of Yehudah Hachasid who traveled to Palestine in 1700, followers of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk in 1777 and those who immigrated to Eretz Yisrael as students of the Gaon of Vilna or the Chasam Sofer respectively.
By 1856, when Flora Randegger reached the Holy Land, the breakdown of the Jewish population of Jerusalem was: 3500 Sephardim (which also included the Arabic speaking Jews), 770 Ashkenazi Perushim,430 Ashkenazi Chassidim, 145 Austrian Jews, 145 Warsawians, 90 Chabad and 57 Germans for a total of 5137 Jews in the holy city
Very little economic activity took place in Jerusalem at the time. The majority of the Jews were very poor and were mainly dependent on the worldwide communal support system called “Chalukah” (literally distribution) money provided by the Jews of the Diaspora. These Old Yishuv Jews who perceived themselves as an elite group representing the entire Jewish population believed that they were fulfilling the Mitzvah of Yishuv Haaretz and were hastening the arrival of Mashiach. They were enhancing the Diasporan Jewish population’s deeper connection to their roots. They were divided into various congregations or Kolelim (groups of people originating in the same country or district, organized in order to distribute the funds collected in their countries of origin.)
Rabbi Yechiel Brill, an acronym for Ben Rabbi Yehudal Lowe, a Ukranian student of the Malbim in Bucharest, had immigrated to Palestine the year before Flora He was employed as a corresponding secretary of Kollel HaPerusahim (established by students of the Gaon of Vilna) in Jerusalem and was to establish in 1863, HaLevanon, the first Hebrew Newspaper to appear on a regular basis in Eretz Yisroel.
In Rebels in the Holy Land: Mazkeret Batya, a Battle for the Soul of the Holy Land, Sam Finkel discusses how Brill may have been the first person to propose that Jews undergo agricultural training in their native countries before making Aliyah. Mazkeret Batya which was named after Baron Edmund de Rothschild’s mother, Betty (Batya) was an agricultural colony established by meticulously observant Jews who were the first professional Jewish farmers in modern Palestine. It was their invention of a harvester that revolutionized agriculture in the Holy Land and their descendants who established Palestine’s first Jewish-owned dairy cooperative. Mazkeret Batya was established a quarter of a century after Flora’s first visit to Jerusalem. The fact that Flora dreamed of opening a school for women with limudei Kodesh as well as agricultural training demonstrates how ahead of her time, her thinking was.
The Crimean War which took place from 1853-1856 was triggered by the struggles over Christian Holy sites between the Catholics (supported by France) and the Greek Orthodox (supported by Russia). This war was a catalyst for the involvement of the European powers in the Middle East and especially in Jerusalem. In this war, England and France fought together with the Ottoman Turks against the Russians. Austria entered the war on the Turkish side by moving its forces toward the Danubian principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia forcing Russia to withdraw.
According to Yochai ben Ghedalia, in his “Habsburg and Jewish Philanthropy in Jerusalem during the Crimean War,” the war stopped the transfer of alms from Russian Jews to Palestine, leading to a humanitarian crisis, especially for the Kollel Perushim and Kollel Warsaw. On the other hand, the European involvement in the war in favor of the Sultan led to a series of legislative reforms in the Ottoman Empire enabling the Powers including Austria to strengthen their grasp on the Holy City. The Powers’ interest in the city was accompanied by concern by the affluent Jews of the West. Jewish philanthropy was conducted in close cooperation with European Consuls. For example in 1854, the Kaiser’s money changer, Ignatz Deutsch, was appointed by the Perushim as “President of the Holy Land,” and director of fundraising in the Habsburg Empire. His appointment was approved by Kaiser Emperor Franz Joseph.
To combat the schools for girls established by missionaries, The Rothschilds from France and the Montefiores from England had been galvanized to establish schools for Jewish girls in the holy city of Jerusalem. Albert Cohen, an Orientalist and philanthropist, who represented the Rothschilds established a school in 1854, two years before Flora reached Jerusalem. The following year Moses Montefiore established another girls school. The initiatives for both schools came from Western Europe where educational innovations were taking place in the secular world at that time.
Noteworthy is the fact that there was staunch opposition to establish a Jewish boys school or a hospital in Jerusalem at the time but a girls school was a bit more acceptable to the city elders who opposed anything that smacked of Haskalah.
In his report about the school he was to establish, Albert (Avraham) Cohen writes: All the girls will be taught women’s handicrafts as well as religious and basic general subjects…
The school was established under the auspices of Baroness Rothschild of Paris and in 1867 became known as the Evelina de Rothschild school to commemorate Evelina de Rothschild who died in childbirth after giving birth to a stillborn son. Evelina was the daughter of Baron Lionel de Rothschild (the first Jew to sit in the British House of Commons and Charlotte Rothschild of the Naples branch of the Rothschild family. Evelina sadly passed away eighteen months after her wedding and had no heirs. This school, which is still in existence today in Jerusalem, perpetuates her memory.
The school established by Montefiore the following year in 1855 was similar to the one established by Rothschild. Emphasis was placed on sewing, embroidery, household chores and`instruction in reading and davening
An English tourist, Mary Eliza Rogers who in 1855 visited the school established by Montefiore describes what she saw:
“There were about fifty girls ages seven to fifteen, most of whom were engaged to be married.”
A Spanish Jewess received her and she saw the girls were nearly all engaged at needlework…
“They spoke in Arabic and wore Arabic costumes….”
After ascending a different stairway Mary Rogers writes about the school of the Askenazi congregation which students seemed to be under seven years old. In another room where girls between thirteen and fifteen who were speaking “a curious harsh dialect being a compound of Hebrew and German…. They were reading stories of the Bible about Moses.””
The Ashkenazi Kehilla at the time was very strict. Women had to wear special white sheets (called lizars) which covered their bodies from head to toe including their faces. Flora with her European dress represented a different culture to them, a culture that they were not comfortable with nor were they interested in having their daughters exposed to.
The following item was reported in the August 18, 1856 issue of the Allgemeine Zeitung, about the schools in Jerusalem: “The Jews in Jerusalem just tolerate the endeavors of Albert Cohen of Paris. The efforts of Sir Moses Montefiore are execrated but those of Mr. Frankl are detested. “
Mr. Frankl who is referred to in the article was the poet and secretary of the Jewish community, of Vienna, Dr. Ludwig August Frankl. He was sent by Elisa Laeml Herz to establish a school in Jerusalem. named after her late father, philanthropist Simon von Laeml, one of the few Austrian Jews to bear a title. It opened its doors in 1853.
Dr Frankl who was the author of Nach Jerusalem, secured about 170 recommendations from the highest officials of the Austrian government as well as from many prominent rabbis among them, Rabbi Eliezer Horowitz, Rabbi Baruch of Vienna and Rabbi Shimon Schreiber the son of Moshe Sofer, known as the Chasam Sofer for his work by that name.
The aforementioned rabbis who lived in Europe were more open minded than the Ashkenazi leaders who forbade their own to attend this new school which planned to give lessons in the German language as well as limudei Kodesh. Some Ashekenazi Jewish leaders put this school in Cherem and only Sephardic students attended the school which didn’t have many pupils.
In HaMaggid (Vol. 5, no. 27) the first weekly Hebrew newspaper which was published in Prussia, Yechiel Brill speaks about Dr. Frankl and his school. He writes: Let Dr. Frankl come now to Jerusalem and let him see which has greater success, the Etz Chayym Yeshiva beloved by G-d and men, or the school which he established there. The former are flourishing and fruitful while the latter will never succeed nor in any way answer the needs of Jerusalem.
Flora discuss the cherem in her diary and the fact that since she could not find a way to help support her family, they were forced to travel back to Trieste. On their way they stopped off in Alexandria, Egypt, where Flora gave birth to a girl.
They finally arrived in Trieste on November 10, 1858, exactly two years to the day Flora had originally left. Nevertheless, she had left alone and had returned with a husband and child. Flora who had hoped to get a job in the Moses Montefiore school was fortunate that she left. When Mary Eliza Rogers visited Jerusalem again in 1859, she writes that the school of Moses Montefiore was not in existence anymore. It seems to have closed down because of lack of funds..
Back in Trieste, Flora continued tutoring and worked on a translation of Sefer Yehoshua into Italian which she published in 1864. It carried the title in Italian: First translation of the Book of Joshua into Italian by a Jewish author. One could imagine there were plenty of non-Jewish Italian translations of the Bible before her time.
That same year, she was approached by Albert Cohen who wanted her to return with her family to Jerusalem so that she could become involved in teaching once again in Jerusalem. Flora, her husband and four children, the oldest of whom was 5 years old and the youngest, four months, made the journey to the Holy Land.
They encountered once again terrible poverty and a new epidemic of cholera.. In addition there was still opposition to the fact that Albert Cohen wanted her to teach the students to write Latin characters and learn a European language. Her family also suffered from Opthalmia and bouts of fever and after two years they decided to return to Trieste. However she still had tremendous love for Eretz Yisroel . She stated that if she would be given another opportunity to live in Jerusalem, she would surely take it.
In 1869 Flora published, also in Trieste, Un Po’ di Tutto. Seconda Strenna Israelitica (A Bit of Everything: A Second Jewish Holiday Gift). It included her journal of both of her visits to Jerusalem, and some commentaries on the Psalms (part of which she had already published, in L’Educatore Israelita), a short story and some poems
It seems she had moved with her family to Venice at some time before 1875. Moses Montefiore writes that he met Flora Randegger Friedenberg in Venice when he stopped there is 1875 on his seventh trip to Palestine. Montefiore describes Signora Randegger-Friedenberg as the author of Strenna Israelitica and and that she discussed with him the idea of establishing an agircultural school in the Holy Land. She told him that she believed it would cost 30,000 Florins to maintain annually. He told her that he would put her in communication with those most interested in “promoting industrial schemes.”
Unfortunately her dreams remained just that.
She passed away 35 years later, in Chirignano, near Venice, Italy at the home of her son Vittorio at the end of April 1910. Vittorio Friedenberg served as the Mayor of Chirignano from 1902-1907 and again from 1914-1920. Flora’s daughter Marianna and her son Vittorio were her only two children that survived to adulthood.
Although she never realized her dream of establishing an agricultural school, as she expressed in writing: “G-d will remember our sacrifice, the willingness I have already shown twice to do something useful for our poor brethren in the Holy Land.”
It is interesting to note that Trieste where Flora began her journey to Eretz Yisroel was dubbed the Gateway to Zion during the twentieth century.