Berl Katznelson
Encyclopedia
Labor Zionism
Labor Zionism can be described as the major stream of the left wing of the Zionist movement. It was, for many years, the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizational structure...
, instrumental to the establishment of the modern State of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and the editor of Davar
Davar
Davar was a Hebrew-language daily newspaper published in the Mandate Palestine and Israel between 1925 and May 1996.-History:Davar was established by Moshe Beilinson and Berl Katznelson, with Katznelson as its first editor. The first edition was published on 1 June 1925 under the name Davar - Iton...
, the first daily newspaper of the workers' movement.
Biography
Katznelson was born in Bobruysk, RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, the son of a member of Hovevei Zion
Hovevei Zion
Hovevei Zion , also known as Hibbat Zion , refers to organizations that are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism....
. He dreamed of settling in the Jewish homeland from an early age. In Russia, he was a librarian in a Hebrew-Yiddish library and taught Hebrew literature and Jewish history. After the 1905 Russian Revolution, he tried his hand at physical labor, fell ill and suffered a severe spiritual crisis. He made aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
to Ottoman Palestine in 1909, where he worked in agriculture and took an active role in organizing workers' federations based on the idea of "common work, life and aspirations."
He perceived his aliyah to be a personal, existential experience, not a public calling. After his departure, he maintained ties with his friends from Bobruysk. He corresponded with Sarah Shmukler and Leah Miron, reporting on his life and experiences in Palestine, but not calling on them to follow him.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, he lived cooperatively with a group from Bobruysk, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias , is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, and it is approximately in circumference, about long, and wide. The lake has a total area of , and a maximum depth of approximately 43 m...
. The group sought acceptance to the young collective that had taken the Kinneret Farm under its auspices. Some opposition derived primarily from the fact that Katznelson himself could not demonstrate any practical skills, but the group was eventually accepted. There he became romantically involved with Sarah Shmukler, while Leah Miron and Rachel Katznelson
Rachel Katznelson-Shazar
Rachel Katznelson-Shazar , also known as Rachel Shazar, was an active figure in the Zionist movement and wife of Zalman Shazar, the third President of the State of Israel.-Biography:...
loved him as well, one openly and the other secretly. Katznelson and Shmukler decided to leave for Tel Aviv, but later separated temporarily. He went to Jerusalem to set up a vegetable cultivation collective.
When the British conquered Palestine in 1917, the couple found themselves separated by the battlefront. Katznelson was in the south under British rule, while Shmukler was in the north, still under Ottoman control. He volunteered for the Jewish Brigade
Jewish Brigade
The Jewish Infantry Brigade Group was a military formation of the British Army that served in Europe during the Second World War. The brigade was formed in late 1944, and its personnel fought the Germans in Italy...
. By the time they were reunited, he was then preoccupied with the idea of uniting all the workers’ parties in Palestine, a plan that was never implemented. Shmukler returned to Yesud HaMa'ala at the request of Hillel Yaffe
Hillel Yaffe
Hillel Yaffe was a Russian Jewish physician and Zionist leader who immigrated to Palestine during the First Aliyah. He was instrumental in curing malaria among the Jewish population of Palestine in the early 20th Century, and helped improve the medical infrastructure of the Yishuv during the same...
, to battle a yellow fever epidemic. Katznelson visited her there. Shmukler died in 1919, and Katznelson later married Leah Miron.
Together with his cousin, Yitzhak Tabenkin
Yitzhak Tabenkin
-External links:...
, Katznelson was one of the founding fathers of the Israeli workers union, the Histadrut
Histadrut
HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael , known as the Histadrut, is Israel's organization of trade unions. Established in December 1920 during the British Mandate for Palestine, it became one of the most powerful institutions of the State of Israel.-History:The Histadrut was founded in...
. In this capcity, together with Meir Rothberg, Katznelson founded the consumer co-operative known as Hamashbir Lazarchan
Hamashbir Lazarchan
Hamashbir Lazarchan is an Israeli chain of department stores. Hamashbir consists of 33 branches across the country.-History:The chain was founded by the Histadrut in 1947...
. He helped to establish the Clalit Health Services sick fund, a major fixture in Israel's network of socialized medicine
Socialized medicine
Socialized medicine is a term used to describe a system for providing medical and hospital care for all at a nominal cost by means of government regulation of health services and subsidies derived from taxation. It is used primarily and usually pejoratively in United States political debates...
. In 1925, together with Moshe Beilinson, Katznelson established the Davar
Davar
Davar was a Hebrew-language daily newspaper published in the Mandate Palestine and Israel between 1925 and May 1996.-History:Davar was established by Moshe Beilinson and Berl Katznelson, with Katznelson as its first editor. The first edition was published on 1 June 1925 under the name Davar - Iton...
daily newspaper, and became its first editor, a position he held until his death, as well as the founder and first editor-in-chief of the Am Oved
Am Oved
-History:Am Oved was founded in 1942 by Berl Katznelson, who was its first Editor in Chief.It was created as an organ of the Histadrut, Israel's federation of Labor, with a goal of publishing books that would "meet the spiritual needs of the working public." Its most well-known series is "Sifriyah...
publishing house.
Katznelson was well known for his desire for peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews in Israel. He was an outspoken opponent of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. He stated:
I do not wish to see the realization of Zionism in the form of the new Polish state with Arabs in the position of the Jews and the Jews in the position of the Poles, the ruling people. For me this would be the complete perversion of the Zionist ideal...
Our generation has been witness to the fact that nations aspiring to freedom who threw off the yoke of subjugation rushed to place this yoke on the shoulders of others. Over the generations in which we were persecuted and exiled and slaughtered, we learned not only the pain of exile and subjugation, but also contempt for tyranny. Was that only a case of sour grapes? Are we now nurturing the dream of slaves who wish to reign?
Katznelson also spoke of Jewish self-hatred
Self-hating Jew
Self-hating Jew is a term used to allege that a Jewish person holds antisemitic beliefs or engages in antisemitic actions. The concept gained widespread currency after Theodor Lessing's 1930 book Der Jüdische Selbsthass ; the term became "something of a key term of opprobrium in and beyond Cold...
, saying:
"Is there another People on Earth so emotionally twisted that they consider everything their nation does despicable and hateful, while every murder, rape, robbery committed by their enemies fill their hearts with admiration and awe?"
Katznelson died of an aneurism in 1944 and was buried at his request in the cemetery on the shores of the Sea of Galilee
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias , is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, and it is approximately in circumference, about long, and wide. The lake has a total area of , and a maximum depth of approximately 43 m...
, next to Sarah Shmukler.
Memories of Katznelson
In her biography, Golda MeirGolda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
remembers Berl Katznelson as a pivotal figure in the life of the Jewish community in Palestine: "Berl was not at all physically impressive. He was small, his hair was always untidy, his clothes always looked rumpled. But his lovely smile lit up his face, and [he] looked right through you, so that no one who ever talked to Berl forgot him. I think of him as I saw him, hundreds of times, buried in a shabby old armchair in one of the two book-lined rooms in which he lived in the heart of old Tel-Aviv, where everyone came to see him and where he worked (because he hated going to an office). 'Berl would like you to stop by' was like a command that no one disobeyed. Not that he held court or ever gave orders, but nothing was done, no decision of any importance to the Labour movement in particular or the yishuv in general, was taken without Berl's opinion being sought first."
Commemoration
Katznelson is commemorated in many places, in name. Beit BerlBeit Berl
Beit Berl is a village and the largest academic college in Israel in number of students and the range of programs it offers. Located on the outskirts of Kfar Sava, it falls under the jurisdiction of Drom HaSharon Regional Council...
near Tzofit
Tzofit
Tzofit is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Kfar Sava, it falls under the jurisdiction of Drom HaSharon Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 890....
, Ohalo
Ohalo
Ohalo is the common designation for the archaeological site Ohalo II, which is located near the Sea of Galilee in modern day Israel, and one of the best preserved hunter-gatherer archaeological sites of the Last Glacial Maximum, having been radiocarbon dated to around 19,400 BP...
(lit. his tent) on Sea of Galilee
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias , is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, and it is approximately in circumference, about long, and wide. The lake has a total area of , and a maximum depth of approximately 43 m...
, and Kibbutz Be'eri
Be'eri
Be'eri is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located in the north-western Negev desert near the border with the Gaza Strip, it falls under the jurisdiction of Eshkol Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 774.-History:...
(which takes Katznelson's literary name
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
). Many streets throughout Israel are named in his memory. Israeli Postal Service
Israel Post
Israel Post , originally Metro Israel, is an Israeli Hebrew-language free daily newspaper based on the concept of the Metro newspapers. Co-owned by Eli Azur and David Weisman, it was first published on August 5, 2007...
issued a Berl Katzenelson commemorative stamp.
External links
- Genealogy of Berl Katznelson from Geni