R' Baruch Meir records in detail the Russian Pogroms of 1881 - 1882. To evade Russian censors, Jewish newspapers in Russia referred to these pogroms as Sufot BaNegev: Storms in the Negev [desert, south], a reference from the prophecy in Isaiah 21:1
מַשָּׂא מִדְבַּר יָם כְּסוּפוֹת בַּנֶּגֶב לַחֲלֹף מִמִּדְבָּר בָּא מֵאֶרֶץ נוֹרָאָה
-- as storms in the Negev passing from the desert, from a terrible land. In other words, these pogroms broke out and swept like a storm through the south-west of the Russian empire.
Sufot BaNegev was an important cause for the rise of the movement of Khibat Zion, to which Baruch Meir recorded he was drawn,
and a major trigger for the "first Aliya" [emigration] to Eretz Israel.
Baruch Meir was particularly emotionally upset by the Sufot BaNegev pogroms of 1881 - 1882, so much so that he volunteered to join the group of people from Brisk and Mezritch formed to buy lands in Eretz Israel. He was their emissary for this purpose and the colony they founded was later named Yissud HaMa'ala.
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| Sufot BaNegev (1), 1881 |
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| Sufot BaNegev (2), 1882 |
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| Sufot BaNegev (3), 1882 |
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| Sufot BaNegev (4), 1882 |
