Eliyahu Kitov

Avraham Eliyahu Mokotow (22 March 1912 – 7 February 1976), better known as Eliyahu Kitov, was a Rabbi, educator, and community activist.

His younger years were spent in the town of Opole Lubelskie, where he learned in a cheder and a beis midrash. Most of his education was from his father, R. Michel, who was a Chassid, a close student of Rabbi Zadok HaCohen of Lublin, and had a great influence in forming his personality.

At the age of 17, he left Opole Lubelskie and moved back to Warsaw. There he studied in a beis midrash, worked at backbreaking jobs, while also doing public work for Agudath Israel of Poland. In his capacity as an educator, he gave lectures in Talmud, Tanakh and Jewish thought. At that time, he also worked on a volunteer basis in secular Jewish schools for abandoned children, until his Aliyah to Israel in 1936. He married a sister of Rabbi Alexander Zusia Friedman, top activist for the Agudath Israel of Poland.

Upon his immigration to Israel, he worked in construction. As a Chareidi Jew, he was extremely dissatisfied with the terrible conditions the Chareidi workers experienced, and helped establish the Union of Agudath Israel workers (Poalei Agudat Yisrael). In addition to its concern for finding steady work for its members, this group eventually established cooperative factories of its own, in the fields of construction and industry. Rav Kitov engaged in this endeavor on a volunteer basis, alongside his own work in construction.

In 1941, he established a school for Chareidi children, where he served as principal for about eight years. At the same time, he became very involved with public affairs, editing the Poalei Agudat Yisrael newspaper, HaKol [The Voice]. In this journal, he published hundreds of articles, under various names, on a wide variety of subjects. In these writings, one can discern the budding of his writing capabilities that were to follow in his many books later on.

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