Eliasberg Mordekhai (1817, Eišiškės, Kaunas Governorate — 1889, Bauska, Courland Governorate) — rabbi, writer, civic figure, one of the founders of Hovevei Zion. Received his initial education from his father, a yeshiva teacher. At the age of nine, he was betrothed to the daughter of the wealthy M. Kadison of Slobodka (a suburb of Kaunas); he moved into his future father-in-law's home and continued his education there until his wedding, when Eliasberg was 13. Besides the Talmud, he studied the Bible in depth, and also the German language.
After his marriage, he moved to Volozhyn, where he studied for a time at the Volozhyn Yeshiva.
He went into commerce, living in Riga and then Kaunas. In Riga, he met M. Lilienthal, who had arrived on a mission from the Russian government, and tried to convince him that positive changes in Jewish domestic life could be achieved not through forced promotion of Haskalah ideas, but through the abolition of restrictions on the Pale of Settlement.
When M. Montefiore visited Kaunas in 1846 en route to Warsaw, Eliasberg met with him.
After four years in trade, he left commerce and retired to a specially rented house, devoting all his time to intensive Torah study, returning home to his family only on the Sabbath. Many of Eliasberg's later published works were written during this period.
From 1852 to 1858, he was rabbi of the town of Žiežmariai, Vilna Governorate; he continued studying Torah and working on his books. He also broadened his general education by reading books in German.
In 1862, he was elected to the post of rabbi of Bauska, which he held until the end of his life, declining invitations from larger communities. During the cholera epidemic of 1867, he contributed to the financing and organisation of medical care for the townspeople. During the famine that struck Russia in 1867–69, which also hit the Jewish communities hard, he published an article in the newspaper “Ha-Maggid” calling for the creation in the Russian Empire of a central federation of Jewish communities, similar to the Alliance organisation or the Board of Deputies in London, to improve the material situation of the Jewish poor. The article sparked lively debate, in the course of which Eliasberg expressed a view contrary to the prevailing one in Jewish journalism of the time: that the improvement of the legal position and general living conditions of Jews would result not from enlightening the Jewish masses and introducing them to European culture, but from enlightening the European nations and raising their cultural level.
In 1863, Eliasberg wrote an open letter to the leadership of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment among Jews in Russia, arguing that the Society's goals could only be achieved by improving the material situation of the broad Jewish masses, and called on the leadership to seek first and foremost the permission for Jews to engage in trade, agriculture and crafts outside the Pale of Settlement.
A deep influence on Eliasberg was exerted by the publication of Z.H. Kalischer's book “Drishat Tzion” (“Seeking Zion,” 1862). Eliasberg himself first spoke publicly on questions of settling Eretz Israel in 1874, publishing in the journal “Levanon” two articles: “Ha-'am nivkhar ve-ha-aretz ha-nivkheret” (“The Chosen People and the Chosen Land”) and “Al dvar yishuv Eretz Yisrael” (“On the Settlement of the Land of Israel”). In them, Eliasberg justified from the Torah the necessity of the revival of the Jewish people in their own land and set out in detail a practical programme for such a revival. It included: the creation of agricultural settlements, the development of industrial production, the encouragement of exports of local products, the encouragement of the immigration of craftsmen and those with especially needed professions, such as builders. Eliasberg also spoke of the necessity of founding a network of yeshivas in Eretz Israel, attracting outstanding rabbis, and making the country a spiritual centre for Jews in the diaspora. He stressed that all this must rest on a solid economic foundation.
From the emergence of the Hibbat Tzion movement (see Hovevei Zion), Eliasberg actively participated in its work. At the founding congress of the movement in 1884 in Katowice, he was elected to the movement's council of six. At the congress in Druskininkai in 1887, which Eliasberg was unable to attend due to ill health, he was elected in absentia, together with Sh. Mohilever and N.Ts.Y. Berlin, as honorary chairman of the movement.
In the debate that unfolded in those years about the possibility of cooperation between religious and secular circles within the Palestinophile movement, Eliasberg argued in letters to N.Ts.Y. Berlin and L. Pinsker that such cooperation was vitally necessary for the success of the movement. What united secular and religious Palestinophiles was the Jewish national feeling. Religious circles lacked the knowledge of languages, customs and political culture of European countries that the maskilim possessed (see Haskalah).
The conclusions of Eliasberg's reflections on the problem of Jewish national revival were summed up in the book “Shvil ha-zahav” (“The Golden Mean”), published posthumously in Warsaw in 1897. For Eliasberg, the highest value was the unity of the people, and the key to achieving such unity was the settlement of Eretz Israel — on the importance of which there should be no two opinions.
Eliasberg was the first to emphatically stress the necessity of uniting all parts of the Jewish people, regardless of their attitude to religion or political views, in the cause of the revival of the Land of Israel. Eliasberg's views essentially defined the ideology of the religious Zionist Mizrachi movement within the general Zionist movement and became the foundation of religious Zionism.
During the conflict between Baron E. de Rothschild and the settlers of Zichron Ya'akov, Eliasberg wrote a letter to the latter urging them not to inflame the conflict with the baron's administration. Eliasberg feared the conflict might prompt Rothschild to cease assistance for the settlement of Eretz Israel altogether. When in 1888 a dispute arose over whether Jewish farmers in Eretz Israel should observe the laws of the Sabbatical year in the approaching Sabbatical year, Eliasberg spoke in favour of relaxing these laws for them. This ruling by Eliasberg provoked a fierce polemic among religious authorities.
In the final period of his life, Eliasberg repeatedly met with A.I. Kook, who several years after Eliasberg's death took the post of rabbi in Bauska.
He wrote in total 24 books on Jewish philosophy and Halachah, of which he resolved to publish only two: “Shvil ha-zahav” (see above) and the collection of responsa “Trumat yad” (“The Offering of the Hand”). Published in 1875, this work consolidated Eliasberg's reputation as an outstanding religious authority.
Jonathan Eliasberg (1850–98), Eliasberg's son, was a rabbi and the author of novellae “Keshet Yonatan” (“Jonathan's Bow”) and “Shi'urei de-rabbanan” (“Rabbinic Teachings”).