Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook רבי צבי יהודה הכהן קוק
sixty years he published his father—and became a father of a movement himself
Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook was born in 5651 (1891) at Zeimelis, the only son of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook. He began preparing his father's writings for print as a young man, in 5668 (1908), in his father's lifetime, and did not leave that work to the end of his days. In 5712 (1952), after the death of Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap, he took the head of the Merkaz haRav yeshiva his father had founded, and led it for thirty years.
Three weeks before the Six-Day War, in an Independence Day address of 1967, he cried out: "Where is our Hebron—have we forgotten it? Where is our Shechem, our Jericho?" Three weeks later all three cities were in Israel's hands, and his students heard prophecy in that speech.
His students founded Gush Emunim, and he sent them to build in Judea and Samaria. The argument over that legacy is among Israel's chief arguments to this day; we describe it and do not judge it. He is buried on the Mount of Olives.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Documents of the period
- The Independence Day address of 1967 — "Where is our Hebron?" three weeks before the war
Scholarship
- The standard rabbinic reference works and encyclopedias — the years, Merkaz haRav and the publishing of his father's writings
Basis: Talmud and midrash.