–sends 500 disciples to Israel
The famed rabbinic from Poland dispatches these 500 disciples—called Perushim—to make aliyah (ascent) to Eretz Israel.
[The Vilna Gaon’s Perushim are not to be confused with the classic term Perushim of the same precise spelling and pronunciation. Albeit with a different nuanced meaning to the term]. The earlier Perushim–Pharisees are the wing of Judaism, which supplanted the Tzadikkim – Sadducee wing. The final fall of the Tzadikkim – Sadducees was contemporaneous with the Destruction of Temple II by the Romans c. 70 CE. The earlier Perushim–Pharisees subsequently fully evolved and morphed into contemporary normative Judaism, to the extent that the term is not used by contemporary Jewry, its precise parameters are not generally known by the overwhelming bulk of contemporary Jewry. Presumably, that is why the Vilna Gaon felt free to allow the (re–) utilization of the term for his designated student settlers (aliyah–niks) even 200 years ago, back in 1808.] Now, back to our text…
Safed, Eretz Israel/Palestina: In accordance with the wishes of the Vilna Gaon, three groups of his disciples and their families, numbering approximately 500 total, make aliyah to Israel between 1808 –1812. They traveled first from Lithuania to Constantinople (today Istanbul, Turkey) on foot and by horse and wagon. From Constantinople, they traveled eastward across the Mediterranean by boat to Acre on the northwest coast of Eretz Israel/Palestina, and then again, eastward by land to their final destination, Safed. The student–families apparently endured significant hardships, including intermittent starvation, on this land–sea odyssey, on this 15–month journey in the midst of the Napoleonic wars raging across Europe.
Considered by some to be the first modern settlement of Israel. Ultimately many of these Perushim left Safed due to a combination of plague, Arab persecutions and/or earthquake. Migrating southward to their kindred metaphysical locus, Jerusalem, the Perushim settlers would ultimately end up as core components, as well, of the contiguous neighborhood of Mea Shearim, and at the time new Jerusalem–outskirt neighborhoods of Mishkenot Sha’ananim and Nachalat Shiva.
On multiple levels these Perushim interacted with the Rothschild family, (Sir) Moses Montefiore in particular (see separate entry later, 1827 CE). The Rothschilds (again and again) historically provided financial, logistical, conceptual, moral and emotional support for this genre settler, whether religious or secular.
In any event, these student–family groups had been designated by the Vilna Gaon as Perushim, meaning separated, because they were ascetic and separated themselves from the community at–large and from worldly pleasures, to study Torah. They, as well, played a key role in the ongoing establishment endeavors of the Hurva Synagogue (separate entry later, 1856 CE) in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Some mystics would posit that an invisible metaphysical corridor of sorts would seem to run between Safed in the northern Israel and the Old City of Jerusalem in mid–central Israel. These mystics would be right, of course.