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| Yosef Kroopnick with his wife, children, and grandchildren |
Dena Udren: Tell me about your childhood.
Yosef Kroopnick: I grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut at a Conservative shul. My family was affiliated via the Conservative movement. I grew up on a street that was not Jewish (although there were Jewish areas in West Hartford). But our particular street was not Jewish and I always felt out of place there. But I also felt out of place at shul because it felt very ostentatious and shallow. West Hartford was a very rich town at the time - I think it was the ninth richest town in America - and the Jews living there were very affected by the ostentatiousness, and the money. Everything was judged by money. So I never really felt like I belonged. I grew up with a Jewish identity (my neighbors would make sure sometimes to remind me), but I didn’t feel connected to the Judaism I knew and I also didn’t feel connected to the non-Jews where I lived.
DU: How did your connection with the Bet El Yeshiva begin?
YK: I first became religious in high school towards the end of my junior year when I came to Ne'ot Mordechai, a kibbutz in northern Israel, for six weeks on a program called the American Zionist Youth Foundation. It was a HaShomer HaTzair kibbutz so they worked on Shabbat, but I was completely caught up with Israel.
I decided when I came back to Connecticut that I wanted to embrace my Jewish identity, so I joined Young Judea my senior year of high school. At some point that year I went to a parade for Israel in New York and I took the train from Hartford. At the time, I was really searching in terms of my Jewish identity. On the train there was someone person from Chabad in New Haven, and he started talking to me about Judaism. I began going to his house with a friend of mine on Shabbatot. I was also influenced at the time by another Rabbi, who is now a teacher at Neve Yerushalayim.
Nearing the end of my senior year I decided I wanted to start keeping Shabbat, so I began walking to the Young Israel of West Hartford, a 2-mile walk each way. Congregants began inviting me to their homes, and slowly but surely I was drawn to the environment and to the very small but hospitable Orthodox community in West Hartford.
Then I went to Brandeis. I identified very strongly with being Jewish at this point, so I went to Brandeis because it was a Jewish school and I wanted to date Jewish girls. My freshman year I was on the Cross Country team and I had to make a choice whether or not to go to a meet on Shabbat. Unfortunately at that point I stopped keeping Shabbat.
But my junior year I went back to Israel, and I was still keeping kosher at the time, which was very important to me. When I returned, I decided I wanted to move to a religious floor in the dorms. I got more interested in Judaism once again and decided my senior year that I wanted to go back to Israel and learn in Yeshiva.
After college I came to Israel and met Chaim Silberstein, who now also lives in Bet El. But at that time he was in Ulpan at Hebrew University and he was my roommate there. I told him I was thinking of going to learn at Ohr Sameach or Aish Hatorah. I had never heard of Machon Meir and he’s the one who told me about it. I decided it was the right place for me to begin my Yeshiva journey and I learned there for a year.
I progressed a lot there, learning 10-12 hours a day. I picked up Hebrew because I took half my shiurim [classes] in Hebrew. I also learned a book in Hebrew. Someone sat down with me and translated it for me word for word. I took notes and studied them every night and I learned Hebrew that way. At some point during the year, Baruch Gordon and Chaim ben Daniel, also both Bet El residents, visited Machon Meir as alumni, and it was from them that I heard about the Bet El Yeshiva. I wanted something more serious, so I moved over there at the end of the year.
DU: When and what did you learn in the Bet El Yeshiva?
YK: I learned in Bet El from 1984-1988. It was amazing learning there. But it was hard too. There were very few chutznikim [Jews from abroad] there and it was a very small program.
DU: What it was like learning in the yeshiva? What memories do you have of your studies there?
YK: It was a mostly Israeli yeshiva, but it was worthwhile to go there because I really pushed myself hard with the learning and the Hebrew language. I was also much older than most of the students there; I was 27 or 28 when I finished. And most were getting married and I was single. That was hard for me. But the interactions between the students and the Rabbis was amazing. To this day, for 36 years, I’ve been connected to the Rabbanim at Bet El. I still go to Rav Chaim Katz for advice.
DU: How do you think you have benefited from your time learning in the yeshiva? How has it influenced your life? Do you have any connection with the yeshiva today?
YK: How did I benefit from it? It changed my whole life. It kept me in Bet El. I brought my wife here, I raised my family here. And to this day I go to shiurim three times a week there. I’ve been going for about 20 years.
YK: My wife is from Chicago and learned at Machon Ora [Machon Meir's sister school], but funnily enough we never met there. I met my wife while I was in Brooklyn getting my accounting degree and she was visiting her family in Chicago. I had already been in the U.S. for a year and a half and would not go out with anybody who didn’t want to make Aliyah.
For me Aliyah wasn’t just an idea, it was a principle. The woman I married had to agree to make Aliyah on the spot - no questions. As soon as I got married I was going to come back to Israel. Very few women wanted to do that, so I had pretty much run out of dating options after six months.
When we first met she told me that she would not date anyone who didn’t want to live in Israel and we began a correspondence. The first time we went out was when I came back to Israel and the rest is history.
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| Yosef Kroopnick with his wife |
YK: Today there are 6.5 million Jews in Israel. We started this country with only 600,000. If you look at the Jewish community today in America, the assimilation rate is 70%. When I left America there were about 6 million Jews. Today, halakhically, there are about 4.5 million.
The Hebrew word for "history" is “historiya.” Rav Kook used to talk about historiya having a yud-hay [two Hebrew letters symbolizing G-d] at the end. G-d guides history. He moves history. He moves nations. He moves people. He moves the Jewish people, pushing them forward in a specific direction. The future of the Jewish people is here in Israel, not in America. And it’s time to come home. There’s a future here. The Land wants you, the people want you.
And there’s no home in America anymore. Slowly but surely, tolerance for Jews is disappearing. They're hated by the Far Left and hated by the Far Right. The vast majority of Aliyah (80-90%) has been forced upon the Jews, not because they wanted to come, but because they were forced out for various reasons (economic hardship, anti-Semitism, expulsion, etc .). In fact, the only group of Jews who have ever really made Aliyah of their own free will is Jews from the West, Iran, and Yemen. It’s better to come to Israel that way, with something in your hands, with some financial backing, some kind of financial stability, than to come as a refugee with just the shirt on your back. Invest in Israel now, buy in Israel now.
Here's a story for inspiration: Kalman Zev Wissotzky, creator and owner of Wissotzky tea - the largest Israeli tea company - was in charge of all tea in the Czar's army prior to 1917. He was a very wealthy man. Zionist organizations asked him to invest in Israel and, as a Zionist himself, he agreed and invested maybe 1% there. In 1917 the Russian government nationalized all industries and everything was taken away from him. All he had left was what he had invested in Israel. It just goes to show you the Kadosh Barukh Hu has His plans.
And if you can’t come personally, then send your children. Just the mere fact that any institution of higher learning here costs 10,000 NIS for a year as opposed to $50,000 year in the U.S. is reason enough. Send your child here for college and you've killed two birds with one stone. It’s cheaper for you and your children will probably stay here and contribute to what is taking place here. We're building something positive, a future of the Jewish people, that way we want to do it; it's how we’re going to change the world.
The Jewish people’s nature has always been to give to the world, and having us concentrated in one country is so much more powerful. It’s like orange juice concentrate. If you diffuse it into 15 different cups, you won’t taste it much. But if you put it all in one pitcher, you’ll taste it strongly.
Our being here is moving the world forward. G-d wants us to change this world and make it a better place, and only here can we be effective in doing that. It’s an amazing country with amazing people. You feel G-d here. I never felt G-d in America and yet here I really feel the presence of HaKadosh Barukh Hu. And why wouldn’t I want to live where His presence is felt?