Labor Zionism
[3] 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.
[2] In April 1913, the Poale Zion, the Labor Zionist Party, held a conference and published writing that addressed the question of Jewish defense, nationalism, and Marxism, all of which seemed to contradict.
They resolved that their current conditions necessitated defense in order to solidify a place for Jewish workers, because that was being threatened.
[5] 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.
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.
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.
[citation needed] Another Zionist thinker, A. D. Gordon, was influenced by the völkisch ideas of European romantic nationalism, and proposed establishing a society of Jewish peasants.
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.
A worker has his labor interests, a soldier his esprit de corps, a doctor and an engineer, their special inclinations.
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.
[citation needed] Albert Einstein was a prominent supporter of both Labor Zionism and efforts to encourage Jewish–Arab cooperation.
[9] 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."
On the contrary, Ha-ahdut (The Unity) newspaper of Poale Zion, and still more, Hapoel Hatzair, represented the highly individualistic, disorganized and even anarchic essence of the second Aliya in their pages.
In 1930 Ahdut HaAvoda and Hapoel Hatzair fused into the Mapai party, which included all of mainstream Labor Zionism.
[14] 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.
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.
[14] In the 1930s, Jews living in the United States facing various assimilation issues and restrictions as well as widespread poverty in the general population, were influenced by Labor Zionism's socialist ideals.
[16] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
