Promised Land

Given his upbringing, Herbert Kruskal would probably have been aware of Jerusalem’s German Colony populated by a Protestant sect called the Templers. But oblivious to the central role these ethnic Germans would later play in his life, the affluent visitor had other sights in mind.

The vibrant country captured his imagination — especially the traditional Torah education of the young boys, so different to his own back in Frankfurt. “He was very impressed by the Yerushalmim,” says Rabbi Kruskal. “He heard the Yerushalmi boys in cheder learning Chumash and Mishnayos fluently, very different from what he’d experienced back in Frankfurt. He came three or four times over the next few years, and then he decided that he wanted to stay in Eretz Yisrael.”

Visits were one thing, but their only son deciding to settle down in Jerusalem was quite another for Leo and Erna Kruskal. So, with Rav Sonnenfeld encouraging their son to stay, they travelled to Palestine in 1924 to have it out with the Yishuv leader directly.

“My father thought that Reb Yosef Chaim could persuade his parents,” says Rabbi Kruskal. “But when my grandparents came and told him why their son needed to come back, as their only son [they also had a daughter], to help with the family business, he replied with a quote based on Chazal to the effect that where the calf goes, the cow will go too — in other words, rather than Herbert returning, they could follow their son.”