Labor Zionism

File:Pre-State_Zionist_Workers'_Parties_chart.png|chart of zionist workers parties|360px|right rect 167 83 445 250 Hapoel Hatzair rect 450 88 717 265 Non Partisans rect 721 86 995 243 Poalei Zion rect 152 316 373 502 HaPoel HaMizrachi rect 552 328 884 512 Ahdut HaAvoda rect 891 301 1111 534 Poalei Zion Left rect 283 519 668 928 Mapai rect 5 665 169 1432 HaOved HaTzioni rect 697 747 918 953 Ahdut HaAvoda Movement rect 755 977 959 1234 Ahdut HaAvoda Poalei ZIon rect 775 1265 1136 1444 Mapam rect 966 1023 1232 1217 HaShomer Hatzair Workers' Party rect 1044 572 1228 766 HaShomer HaTzair rect 942 769 1177 919 Socialist League of Palestine rect 387 1275 734 1447 Mapai rect 365 1260 174 1447 HaPoel HaMizrachi rect 36 6 1225 81 Labor Zionism desc bottom-left Background Before 1914, the growing alienation from Bolshevism on the one hand and the unification of the Jewish Labor Movement in Ottoman Palestine on the other hand made it possible for Zionism to gain a measure of recognition and legitimacy, particularly in the United States. The Labor Zionists differed from other labor organizations at the time since non-Zionist labor organizations were internationalist, therefore opposed to Jewish nationalism, such as the General Jewish Labour Bund in Central and Eastern Europe, which opposed the creation of a Jewish state or emigration to Palestine. The leadership of the Jewish left in the U.S. was drawn only from two distinct sources: the internationalist and cosmopolitan line of thought of the founding fathers who arrived in the 1880s, and some former members of the General Jewish Labour Bund who left the Russian Empire after 1905 and saw no contradiction between socialism and nationalism within the Jewish diaspora. The Second Aliyah Labor Zionism was one of the most mainstream forms of Zionism prior to and following the establishment of the State of Israel. Labor Zionism was responsible for the creation of institutions in Israel that exist today, such as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The predecessors of the IDF began as underground militia groups to protect Jews during the Second Aliyah in 1904. A majority of the immigrants at the time were influenced by socialist ideals, because of the Marxist ideologies spreading throughout Russia. Additionally, the First Aliyah was met by backlash because of the Rothschild family's funding of the settlements. These values were implemented during the second Aliyah by using the Hebrew language, only hiring Jewish labor, and the creation of Bar Giora and the Hashomer, to work towards independence in this new land. Their establishment was in response to Arab nationalism, that they believed would ultimately lead to clashes with the Palestinian Arabs. They believed that they were the first line of defense against Arab dissent, and wanted to establish a working class in Palestine. Hashomer then became the Haganah, which was the first official military organization in Israel, which was then turned into the IDF. As a result, the Passfield White Paper was published, indicating a withdrawal of support of the Zionist cause. The combination of these tensions increased the necessity of having a concrete plan and Zionist ideology to follow. As a competing ideology with Revisionist Zionism, Labor Zionism gained popularity. The General Zionists began to lean towards Labor or Revisionist Zionism. During the 17th Congress in 1931, a vote would take place on whether or not the Zionist Congress would pursue the 'ultimate objective' platform of the Revisionist Zionists. During the 16 days of debate, a message was sent from Palestine, relaying the message of fear of an Arab pogrom if the 'all or nothing stance' of the Revisionist Party went through. This resulted in the rejection of the proposal. After two years of campaigning, the Labor Zionist party won the election to have leadership of the Zionist Congress at the 18th Congress in 1933. By the 1930s, the Labor Zionist movement had substantially grown in size and influence, and eclipsed "political Zionism" both internationally and within the British Mandate of Palestine. Labor Zionists predominated among many of the institutions of the Yishuv, particularly the trade union federation known as the Histadrut. The Haganah, the largest Yishuv paramilitary, was a Labor Zionist organization. It occasionally participated in military action (such as during The Saison) against certain radical right-wing Jewish political opponents and militant groups, sometimes in cooperation with the British Mandate administration. == Ideology ==

Moses Hess's 1862 work Rome and Jerusalem: The Last National Question argued for the Jews to settle in Palestine as a means of settling the national question. Hess proposed a socialist state in which the Jews would become agrarianized through a process of "redemption of the soil" that would transform the Jewish community into a true nation in that Jews would occupy the productive layers of society rather than being an intermediary non-productive merchant class, which is how he perceived European Jews. Ber Borochov, continuing from the work of Moses Hess, proposed the creation of a socialist society that would correct the "inverted pyramid" of Jewish society. Borochov believed that Jews were forced out of ordinary occupations by gentile hostility and competition, using this dynamic to explain Jewish professionals' relative predominance, rather than workers. He argued that Jewish society would not be healthy until the inverted pyramid was righted, and a substantial number of Jews became workers and peasants again. This, he held, could only be accomplished by Jews in their own country. Jonathan Frankel in his book Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862–1917, states that after 1905, Dov Ber Borochov, a Marxist Zionist and one of the pioneers of the Labor Zionist movement suddenly rejected voluntarism for determinism. Prior to this, Borochov regarded Palestinian colonialization as a preparatory mission to be carried out by an elite vanguard of pioneers; he developed a theory after the revolution of 1905 that indicated how inevitable Palestinian colonization by the Jewish masses was. Another Zionist thinker, A. D. Gordon, was influenced by the völkisch ideas of European romantic nationalism, and proposed establishing a society of Jewish peasants. Gordon made a religion of work. These two figures (Gordon and Borochov), and others like them, motivated the establishment of the first Jewish collective settlement, or kibbutz, Degania Alef, on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, in 1909 (the same year that the city of Tel Aviv was established). Deganiah, and many other kibbutzim that were soon to follow, attempted to realize these thinkers' vision by creating communal villages, where newly arrived European Jews would be taught agriculture and other manual skills. Joseph Trumpeldor is also considered to be one of the early icons of the Labor Zionist movement in Palestine. When discussing what it is to be a Jewish pioneer, Trumpeldor stated: Trumpeldor, a Socialist Zionist, died defending the community of Tel Hai in the Upper Galilee in 1920. He became a symbol of Jewish self-defense and his reputed last words, "Never mind, it is good to die for our country" (En davar, tov lamut be'ad artzenu אין דבר, טוב למות בעד ארצנו), became famous in the pre-state Zionist movement and in Israel during the 1950s and 1960s. Trumpeldor's heroic death made him not only a martyr for Zionists Left but also for the Revisionist Zionist movement who named its youth movement Betar (an acronym for "Covenant of Joseph Trumpeldor") after the fallen hero. Albert Einstein was a prominent supporter of both Labor Zionism and efforts to encourage Jewish–Arab cooperation. Fred Jerome in his Einstein on Israel and Zionism: His Provocative Ideas About the Middle East argues that Einstein was a Cultural Zionist who supported the idea of a Jewish homeland but opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine "with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power." Instead, he preferred a bi-national state with "continuously functioning, mixed, administrative, economic, and social organizations." In the November 1948 presidential election Einstein supported former vice-president Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party, which advocated a pro-Soviet foreign policy – but which also at the time (like the USSR) strongly supported the new state of Israel. Wallace went down to defeat, winning no states. == Parties in Palestine==

Two Zionist labor parties were established in Palestine in late 1905 (the Second Aliyah) by party organization veterans from the pale of settlement, one socialist, the Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party in Palestine, rooted in Poale Zion; the other radical, Hapoel Hatzair ("The Young Worker"). The Left Poale Zion-based party ultimately merged with the kibbutz-based Hashomer Hatzair, the urban Socialist League and several smaller left-wing groups to become the Mapam party, which in turn later joined with Shulamit Aloni’s Ratz to create Meretz. The Mapai party later became the Israeli Labor Party, which for a number of years was linked with Mapam in the Alignment. These two parties were initially the two largest parties in the Yishuv and in the first Knesset, whilst Mapai and its predecessors dominated Israeli politics both in the pre-independence Yishuv and for the first three decades of Israel's independence, until the late 1970s. {{Quote box {{Collapsible list | title = Outline of Labour Zionist and Workers' Parties == Decline and transformation ==

speaking at the cornerstone laying ceremony for Histadrut building in Jerusalem, 1924 Prior to the fourteenth Zionist Congress in Vienna in August 1925, the labor movement had formed close relationships with the liberal leftist branch of General Zionism and with the section of the Zionist leadership that was directly responsible for the Zionist enterprise. Zeev Sternhell in his book "The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and The Making of the Jewish State" describes Labor's relationship with Arthur Ruppin, a Zionist historian and leader who, while advocating capitalist agriculture, refused to entrust market forces with the production of agricultural settlements. Already in the 1920s the Labor movement disregarded its socialist roots and concentrated on building the nation by constructive action. According to Tzahor its leaders did not "abandon fundamental ideological principles". However, according to Ze'ev Sternhell in his book The Founding Myths of Israel, the labor leaders had already abandoned socialist principles by 1920 and only used them as "mobilizing myths". The middle class allowed itself the freedom to stand aside and avoid involvement in the political life of the Yishuv and the Zionist movement. Because nationalist socialism in Palestine did not pose a threat to the private sector, the middle class never felt the need for a united political organization parallel with the Histradrut or for the formulation of an alternative to Labor's ideology. Beth Wenger, illustrates the reactions of Jewish women to the economic downturn, their contribution to the family economy, and the general tendency to adhere only to the style of a wage-working husband in the American middle class. Deborah Dash Moore describes in her book "At Home in America" how the generation influenced by such socialist ideals reconstructed Jewishness, molded it to suit the American middle-class model, adapted it to the rigors of urban life, imbued it with Jewish feelings learned from their immigrant parents, and added it to the Jewish history chain. Following the 1967 Six-Day War several prominent Labor Zionists created the Movement for Greater Israel which subscribed to an ideology of Greater Israel and called upon the Israeli government to keep and populate all areas captured in the war. Among the public figures in this movement associated with left-wing nationalism were Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, Yitzhak Tabenkin, Icchak Cukierman, Zivia Lubetkin, Eliezer Livneh, Moshe Shamir, Zev Vilnay, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Isser Harel, Dan Tolkovsky, and Avraham Yoffe. In the 1969 Knesset elections it ran as the "List for the Land of Israel", but failed to cross the electoral threshold. Prior to the 1973 elections, it joined the Likud and won 39 seats. In 1976 it merged with the National List and the Independent Centre (a breakaway from the Free Centre) to form La'am, which remained a faction within Likud until its merger into the Herut faction in 1984. Other prominent Labor Zionists, especially those who came to dominate the Israeli Labor Party, became strong advocates for relinquishing the territory won during the Six-Day War. By the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, this became the central policy of the Labor Party under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. What distinguishes Labor Zionism from other Zionist streams today is not economic policy, an analysis of capitalism, or any class analysis or orientation, but its attitude towards the Israeli–Palestinian peace process with modern Labor Zionists tending to support the Israeli peace camp to varying degrees. This orientation towards Israel's borders and foreign policy has dominated Labor Zionist institutions in recent decades to the extent that socialist Zionists who support a Greater Israel ideology are forced to seek political expression elsewhere. In Israel the Labor Party has followed the general path of other governing social-democratic parties such as the British Labour Party and is now fully oriented towards supporting a capitalist model, and some factions support centrist policies akin to the Third Way, though in the 2010s it has returned to a more social-democratic outlook under the leadership of Shelly Yachimovich and Amir Peretz. == Labor Zionism today ==

march in the May Day parade in Tel Aviv, 2011. 90 years of the Histadrut. Labor Zionism manifests itself today in both adult and youth organizations. Among adults, the World Labor Zionist Movement, based in Jerusalem, has affiliates in countries around the world, such as Ameinu in the United States and Australia, Associação Moshé Sharett (Moshe Sharett Association) in Brazil and the Jewish Labour Movement in the United Kingdom. Youth and students are served through Zionist youth movements such as Habonim Dror, Hashomer Hatzair and college-age campus activist groups such as the Union of Progressive Zionists of the U.S. and Canada. Shlomo Avineri, member of the last Labor government, Israeli political scientist, Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who has written on Hegel and translated some of Marx’s early writings recognizes that Zionism is “the most fundamental revolution in Jewish life” and stresses the revolutionary aspect of Zionism. In The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State, he believes it as a permanent revolution that aims for a radically different and more just society in Israel after creating a new normative and public focus for Jewish Existence. He is out to challenge Zionism's consensus view as a religiously inspired movement sparked by outbreaks of anti-Semitism and to create a rich, diverse intellectual lineage important to the movement today. In Israel, Labor Zionism has become nearly synonymous with the Israeli peace camp. Usually, Labor Zionist political and educational institutions activists are also advocates of a two-state solution, who do not necessarily adhere to socialist economic views. ==See also==