Agudat Israel in Palestine before 1948 (Nakba), British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 921. Chapter XXII: Community And Religious Affairs: Section 5

CHAPTBR XXII.
the past ten years from about £PA0,000 to approximately £P.200,000*. Jewish medical services under the control of the Vaad Leumi are also in receipt of Government grants which have increased from £P,12,000 to £P.48,000 during the past ten financial years. Social welfare schemes controlled by the Vaad Leumi will during the financial year 1945/46 obtain Government grants to a total of approximately £P .80 ,000. A further grant of £P.25,000 has been granted in 1945/46 to the Tel Aviv municipal council in respect of social services.

Section 5.

AGUDAT ISRAEL.

104. The Agudat Israel is an organization representing a considerable congregation of orthodox .Jews who have been established for generations in Palestine, mainly in Jerusalem, Tiberias and Safad. Exact figures of their present number are not available; an approximate estimate gives 32,000 of whom 23,000 are over eighteen years of age. They are part of a world organization of orthodox Jews known as the World Central Agudat Israel.

105. Although recently the organization has begun to support Zionist policy in regard to immigration and the settlement of Jews in Palestine, the members hold in general the belief that the reestablishment of the Jews in Palestine will be accomplished by God in His own time without help from man. The)' do not form part of the official Jewish community, although, in doctrine, they are not in any fundamental respect as variance with Jews belonging to that community. Roth are governed by Biblical precept and post-Biblical exegesis: both order their religious lives unquestioningly by the authority of the Shulchan Aruch (The Set Table) which is the Jewish code of conduct, embodying rescripts in civil and criminal matters as well as in ritual practice and ceremonial, compiled by the medieval rabbinical legislator, Joseph Karo of Safad. The sanctions of this code are undisputed in Jewry, and are acknowledged alike by the orthodox Jews of the Vaad Leumi as well as by the orthodox Jews belonging to the Agudat Israel. Indeed, them is among the membership of the Vaad Leumi a body of strictly observant Jews far outnumbering the Agudat Israel and including the Mizrahi Jews who, like the Agudat Israel, are guided in all their undertakings in Palestine
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* See chapter XVI, section 3.

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