ARONSON, SOLOMON

ARONSON, SOLOMON (1862–1935), chief rabbi of Tel Aviv and Zionist leader. Aronson was chief rabbi of Kiev, 1906–21, and was active in the Ḥovevei Zion movement, attending its conventions as a delegate. After the First Zionist Congress in 1897, Aronson published several articles in Ha-Meliẓ, defending political Zionism against the attacks of its ultra-Orthodox opponents. He later joined the Mizrachi organization. Aronson frequently interceded with the Czarist authorities on behalf of the Jews and helped in the legal defense of mendel beilis in the blood libel of 1913. During World War I he worked for the relief of refugees from Galicia who had come to Kiev. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, he sponsored the national-religious Aḥdut Israel movement, which eventually merged into a nationwide federation. In 1921 he escaped to Berlin, serving   as rabbi of the Russian community there until 1923, when he immigrated to Palestine. There he was appointed chief rabbi of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa community. Aronson founded and helped maintain various welfare institutions in Tel Aviv, including a society for the support of Russian refugees, established the Tel Aviv yeshivah, and took an active part in the Mizrachi movement, particularly in the field of education. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Enẓiklopedyah le-Ẓiyyonut, 1 (1947), 14–15; Tidhar, 1 (1947), 164–5; EẒD, 1 (1958), 39–42 (includes bibliography). (Zvi Kaplan)