Abraham Mordechai Links

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Abraham Links a leading Scottish Zionist activist.

Abraham Links (1886- died in Newton Mearns in 1953 at the age of 67)


Links 'came from Galicia to Glasgow in the 1880s as a young child. He established a drapery business in 1907 which proved to be most successful. The company moved in due course into a large new building in Wilson Street. Abraham was a committed and generous Zionist, active in the Jewish National Fund and other Zionist organisations.'[1]

Links: 'was involved in setting up the first Glasgow office of the Jewish National Fund in Dixon Street in 1935, building on the success of the JNF's Glasgow Committee which had been founded in 1901 to raise funds to buy land in Palestine for the creation of a Jewish homeland. Links also supported Hebrew language teaching for Jewish children and the establishment of a Zionist-oriented Jewish day school in the Gorbals. The first step was the creation in 1911 of the Hebrew Higher Grade School at 124 South Portland Street, which offered after-school classes for children and evening classes for adults.[2]


A. Links & Company, Limited, opened in Glasgow in 1907. Source: Kenneth E. Collins, Second City Jewry. 1990.

Family

Abraham Links married Dora Henna Links (nee Weiner), (who bore him several children and died at the age of 39 in 1926 in Cathcart, Glasgow; Mothers maiden name SHORRESMAN) Abraham Links married Annie Links (nee Gillis/Davis) in 1928 in Cathcart, when he was 42. Annie Links (mother's maiden name Kentridge) died at 83 in 1974 at Ayr. Her birth year would have been about 1891, so she would have been about 37 when she married. https://www.geni.com/people/Abraham-Links/297574569900004962 https://www.geni.com/people/Maurice-Benzion-Links/6000000004959268507

Abraham Mordechai Links (1886 - 1953)



Half brother of Louis Links[7]

Abraham Links and Zionism

The school obviously posed some competition for the Talmud Torah whose roll during the 1911-1912 session had dropped to about 250, made up mostly of poor children, and as we shall see precipitated a real crisis in Jewish education in Glasgow. The Zionist orientation of the Hebrew Higher Grade School set it apart from the Talmud Torah and the congregational and private Hebrew classes, or chadarim, but the popularity of the concept of Hebrew language teaching spread to the other local Jewish educational institutions. In particular, with local Zionist support the Talmud Torah adopted Irit b Irit as its own teaching method. With increasing divisions in Jewish education, Abraham Links, for many years one of the leading figures in Glasgow Zionism, quickly espoused the cause of the Higher Grade Hebrew School urging parents to support it and help it achieve its aim of becoming a day school. Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Links had been the hosts at a meeting in February 1912, chaired by Rev. E.P. Phillips and addressed by Jacob Fox to give some publicity to the early achievements of the school. By 1912 there were some new names in the leadership of the Glasgow Zionist movement: Zevi Golombok, whose later entry into the local Jewish press was designed to lend support to the Zionist cause, Barnet (Berl) Shenkin, Abraham Haase and Herzl Shulman. A new immigrant to Glasgow from Bukovina in Rumania, Nachman Louvish soon set the scene for activities involving Zionist culture with a politically progressive view. In February 1913 Louvish founded a new society HaEvria which made Hebrew culture, with Hebrew songs and lectures, a central feature and set up yet another Irit b'Ivrit school. It was Zevi Golombok who opened the meeting, attended by over 1,200 Jews, in the Dixon Halls in February 1913 addressed by Nahum Sokolow, one of the great Zionist leaders. Jacob Fox from Liverpool chaired the meeting and it is possible that his visit coincided with some difficulties faced by the Higher Grade Hebrew School to which no further reference can be found.[8]
The question of accepting all that the Glasgow School Board would permit, namely using the hour at the start of the school day arose again in 1917. A committee headed by H.M. Langman, Louis Daets and Abraham Links organised a meeting at the Jewish National Institute in January 1917 where Rabbi Katz of Queens Park presided. Ministers, teachers and representatives of various communal meetings were present and agreed to organise Jewish religion and Hebrew classes in the Gorbals schools. H.M. Langman quickly arranged with Adelphi Terrace to start classes there on a trial basis. As there was no statutory basis to these classes there could be no compulsion in obtaining a full attendance and Langman could only express his hope that parents would encourage their children to attend. Rev. Plaskow, the assistant minister at the Queens Park Synagogue was appointed headmaster of the classes and in April 1917 a Jewish Education Aid Society was formed.[9]
Despite Nathaniel Jacobs' public anti-Zionist sentiments Glasgow Jewry's commitment to the Zionist movement and its ideals was solid and the only opposition could be found in certain circles at Garnethill, led by the Heilbronn family. Although the Glasgow Bnei Zion had been somewhat eclipsed during the war years the leadership in the Zionist movement in Glasgow passed to a new organisation the Jewish National Movement Committee which had been founded in January 1915. The flagging of the Bnei Zion prompted the Zionist friendly society, the Order of Ancient Maccabeans, to convene a conference in Glasgow presided over by Abraham Links and to wnich Dr. Fox from Liverpool was invited to strengthen the organisation of Zionist activity in the city.
The Jewish National Movement Committee took a major initiative in May 1916 when it decided to rent the former building of the Hutchesons' Girls Grammar School which had moved to larger premises nearby in Kingarth Street. The former school building in Elgin Street, at the southern edge of the Gorbals, had been considered by other Jewish organisations such as the Talmud Torah but it seemed at the time to be outwith their financial ability. The building, renamed the Jewish National Institute and rented for the annual sum of £170, contained a full range of classrooms and meeting rooms as well as a hall and library facilities. It was therefore ideal for use by the Zionist organisations and gave them the opportunity of setting up their own literary section and Bet Sepher, or Hebrew language school.[10]
The new leadership of the Glasgow Zionists consisted of a small group of men.[11] They were mostly businessmen. Their communal work was praised in reports on Zionist activity in the Jewish Echo and they were publicly honoured on several occasions. In 1936, for example, a function was organised in honour of Fred Nettler, president of the GZO (who had just been made a Justice of the Peace and also had the honour of presiding at the 36th annual conference of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland in London). During the same year the name of the treasurer of the JNF, N. Links, was inscribed in the Golden Book on the occasion of his silver wedding.[12]
What these two men had in common was that they combined their activity with an active business life. Nettler owned a large furrier business in the city and the wholesaler Links was just having a new six-story warehouse built in Wilson Street. They efficiently but perhaps less idealistically than their predecessors led the Zionist organisations in a similar way as they conducted their business. At this stage it appears as if businessmen like Nettler and Links dominated Glasgow Zionism. In a sense their position as Zionist leaders acknowledged the social position of these businessmen.

Affiliations

People

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/abraham-links-18861953-247475
  2. ↑ https://www.theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=TGSE00745
  3. ↑ LINKS ISAAC HAROLD 87 COHEN M 1999 605 / 830 Glasgow, Martha St
  4. ↑ LINKS MORRIS 87 COHEN M 2000 650 / 495 Eastwood and Mearns
  5. ↑ LINKS IDA 89 BLACK F 2000 650 / 392 Eastwood and Mearns
  6. ↑ LINKS DAVID NEHEMIAH 84 WEINER M 2000 650 / 546 Eastwood and Mearns
  7. ↑ https://www.geni.com/people/Abraham-Links/297574569900004962
  8. ↑ Kenneth E. Collins, Second City Jewry: The Jews of Glasgow in the age of expansion, 1790-1919, Glasgow: Scottish Jewish Archives, 1990 p. 132.
  9. ↑ Kenneth E. Collins, Second City Jewry: The Jews of Glasgow in the age of expansion, 1790-1919, Glasgow: Scottish Jewish Archives, 1990 p. 186.
  10. ↑ Kenneth E. Collins, Second City Jewry: The Jews of Glasgow in the age of expansion, 1790-1919, Glasgow: Scottish Jewish Archives, 1990 p. 201.
  11. ↑ 158
  12. ↑ 159.
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