World Mizrachi leader. Born in Volozhin, Russia, Rabbi Bar-Ilan went to Berlin in 1910 where he served as general secretary of the world Mizrachi movement. In Berlin, he founded and edited the weekly Ha-Ivri. In 1913, he came to the United States where he developed local Mizrachi branches into a national organization of which he was president from 1916 to 1926. Afterward, he settled in Palestine. Bar-Ilan was a man of tremendous energy, with an erudition and attitude that embraced all Jewish life. In addition to playing a primary role in international Zionism, he edited Mizrachi’s Hebrew daily Ha-Tzofeh, organized support for Israeli Yeshivot, or Talmudic academies, and worked on the publication of a new edition of the Talmud. When the First Knesset, or parliament, convened, he was a leading representative of the religious bloc. On April 18, 1949, while pleading against the internationalization of Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan died. In his honor are named the central World Mizrachi building in Tel Aviv, Bet Meir, the Berlin Forest, and the Mizrachi-sponsored Bar-Ilan University in Israel. His memoirs, Fun Volozhin Bis Yerushalayim (From Volozhin to Jerusalem), written in Yiddish, were first published in 1933.