.
By Ilan Schori
I recently came into the possession of an old photo of the Adolf Kraus’ Lodge in Zikhron Ya’akov. The name of the photographer and a date and place were listed on the photo: Mozes, Zikhron Ya’akovת, Hebrew Year 5,708 (1939-40), but there was no further information.
It took some time to find a Lodge named Adolf Kraus but in the end, I found an official letter sent by the Lodge in 1929 to David Yellin, President of the Great Lodge’s at the time. David Yellin was an educator and researcher, one of the founders of the Israel’s Teachers Union and the Hebrew Language Committee, and helped establish the courtyard neighborhood of Nahalat Shiva in Jerusalem. He was married to Ita, the daughter of Yechiel Michel Pines. Pines and Yellin were among the founders of the Great Lodge in 1888.
The letter was signed with the stamp of the Lodge and dated the Hebrew year of 5689 (1928-9). Among the signatories was Yosef Moshe Bronner , the pharmacist of Zikhron Yaakov and secretary of the Lodge. Further research unearthed that the Adolf Kraus Lodge was established in 1911, as the fourth B’nai B’rith Lodge in the Land of Israel (after Jerusalem-1988; Neve Tzedek -1890; and Tzfat. The official number of the Lodge was 689 and its first President was Zecharia Shapira.
Zecharia Shapira was born in West Galicia to a family of bankers and gradually took an interest in Zionism. He served as a delegate in the First Zionist Congress. In 1900 he helped found Mahanayim. He immigrated to Israel in 1901. He was the first President of the Tzfat Lodge, which he helped establish. In 1902 he began working as a teacher in Bat Shlomo, a daughter-settlement of Zikhron Yaakov, and towards the end of the decade he founded the Adolf Kraus Lodge and was elected President.
Leading up WWI, and later, Shapira helped found other lodges, such as the Hadera Lodge. During WWI, he devoted most of his time to supporting and finding housing for emigrants deported from Jaffa and Tel Aviv. In the early 1920s, he began working as a teacher at a girls’ school in Neve Tzedek. He became secretary of the Shaar Zion Lodge and helped convince Meir Dizengoff to serve as President.
And who, in the end, is Adolf Kraus, who the Zikhron Ya’akov Lodge was named after? After some more research, it turns out that Adolf Kraus, was one of B’nai B’rith’s most important global presidents in the twentieth century. Born in Bohemia (Austro-Hungary) in the middle of the 19th century, he emigrated to America and settled in Chicago. After studying law. He became a lawyer and became and a well-known public figure in the city at the end of the 19th century. He was president of the Chicago Board of Education and even considered running for mayor.
At that time, Kraus joined B’nai B’rith, and quickly climbed the rungs of the Washington organization. In 1905 he was chosen as World President, a position he held for two decades. During his tenure, B’nai B’rith grew as an organization in America and throughout the world. In 1927, B’nai B’rith awarded him the Supreme Order of the Covenant.