Giladi (Butelbroit), Israel
GILADI (Butelbroit), ISRAEL
GILADI (Butelbroit ), ISRAEL (1886–1918), pioneer in Ereẓ Israel and leader of *Ha-Shomer. Born in Calarasi, Bessarabia, Giladi was a member of Po'alei Zion and an advocate of Jewish self-defense. In 1905 he went to Ereẓ Israel and joined the Jewish laborers in the settlements. In 1907 he was one of the founding members of the Bar Giora secret defense society and a year later joined the collective labor group in *Sejera. When Ha-Shomer was founded in 1909, Giladi was elected to its committee and put in charge of the defense of settlements in Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. He became acting head of the organization in 1913 when Israel *Shochat, its leader, left for Constantinople. During World War i he proposed the establishment of an agricultural settlement to serve as a base for Ha-Shomer and, in the summer of 1917, he and a group of friends established Kefar Bag (named after the Bar Giora society) south of Metullah. He died in an influenza epidemic. Giladi was the author of Divrei Yemei ha-Aguddah ("History of the Association"), a source for the history of Ha-Shomer (published in Koveẓ ha-Shomer, 1937). After his death, the village he had helped found, Kefar Giladi, was named after him.
bibliography:
Dinur, Haganah, index; J. Yaari-Poleskin, Ḥolemim ve-Loḥamim (1946), 363–9; S. Sheva, Shevet ha-No'azim (1969).
[Yehuda Slutsky]