Hatzohar

Hatzohar understood Zionism principally as a political movement whose central task was securing a Jewish state, rather than accumulating economic and settlement achievements without a decisive political settlement.[1] Drawing on Theodor Herzl’s approach, it argued that practical work could not achieve Zionism’s objectives while the Mandatory administration remained, in its judgment, essentially anti-Zionist.[1] Jabotinsky expressed this ordering of priorities in the statement: “Ninety per cent of Zionism may consist of tangible settlement work, and only ten per cent of politics; but those ten percent are the precondition of success.”[1]

The movement’s proposed state was to have a Jewish majority and extend across Palestine on both sides of the Jordan River.[1] Its founding program connected that objective with mass Jewish settlement, private enterprise, and a Jewish army in Palestine.[4] Hatzohar therefore combined demands for political recognition with proposals concerning immigration, economic development, and organized Jewish defense.[1][4] It also challenged the socialist orientation dominant in much of organized Zionism, favoring a more liberal economic structure and a more forceful defense policy than Labor Zionism.[5]

Although closely identified with Jabotinsky, the organization had its own leadership and associated institutions: its first president was Vladimir, or Ze’ev, Tiomkin, and its network eventually included youth, veterans’, women’s, religious, student, and sports organizations.[1] Hatzohar began within the World Zionist Organization; the New Zionist Organization emerged from the later Revisionist secession in 1935.[1] These developments formed successive stages in Revisionist organization rather than a single founding event.[1]

Jabotinsky resigned from the World Zionist Organization’s Executive in 1923 because he disagreed with what he regarded as its passive acceptance of British rule in Palestine.[6] His subsequent establishment of Hatzohar arose from the conviction that Zionist leadership needed to take a harder line toward British policy.[7] The new party also opposed what Jabotinsky considered the executive’s conciliatory approach to the Mandatory government and the insufficient pace of Zionist settlement.[5]

The founding conference took place in Paris in April 1925.[4] Several hundred activists gathered in the Latin Quarter on April 26, following an initiative by Zionist groups in Paris, most of them described as immigrants from Russia, who had approached Jabotinsky about establishing a political party.[8] Most conference delegates were local Zionists of Russian extraction, many of whom had participated in his First World War campaign for a Jewish Legion.[4] Their resolutions called for revising official Zionist policy to secure a Jewish-majority state in the Land of Israel on both sides of the Jordan.[4]

Maariv identifies the April 26 Paris gathering as the movement’s founding conference, whereas the Center for Israel Education dates the formation of Ha-Zohar to August 27, 1925, at the Fourteenth Zionist Congress in Berlin.[8][7] The sources do not resolve this difference in dating and location.

At the Paris conference, Jabotinsky presented the expression “national home” as meaning a Jewish state.[8] His interpretation of the Balfour Declaration called for a state with a Jewish majority and a Jewish army.[8] The conference’s practical resolutions identified mass Jewish settlement and private enterprise, alongside military organization, as instruments for reaching that objective.[4] Hatzohar initially remained within the World Zionist Organization, seeking to redirect the wider movement’s policy rather than immediately establish a rival international organization.[1]

Revisionism grew particularly strongly in Eastern and Central Europe, where many Jews were waiting to emigrate.[1] Poland became the party’s main source of strength and supplied much of its immigration to Palestine.[4] At an all-Polish conference in Warsaw in 1928, 77 delegates represented 44 major branches; by the following year, the party had 340 major branches in Poland.[4] A Romanian national Revisionist conference also met in Czernowitz in April 1928.[4] The Polish organization concentrated on Zionist questions concerning the Land of Israel rather than assuming a major role in local parliamentary or Jewish communal elections.[4]

A study published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs recounts Jabotinsky’s March 1927 claim that Poland already had “not less than 10,000 registered Revisionists,” while noting his accompanying assessment that the organization remained weak.[9] The same study follows Ruben Feldschu, who joined the movement in 1925, served on its Warsaw central committee, and helped edit the Yiddish monthly Der Emes, first issued in August 1928.[9] It describes Feldschu’s advocacy of independent political activity and recruitment among previously unaffiliated Jews, especially intellectuals and the petty bourgeoisie.[9]

In Palestine, Revisionism appealed in the late 1920s to some Polish Jewish immigrants, including small entrepreneurs who opposed Labor Zionism’s socialism and favored Jabotinsky’s advocacy of self-defense and laissez-faire economics.[5] Approximately 80,000 Jews arrived from Central Europe between 1924 and 1931; this immigration, together with escalating Jewish-Arab violence, contributed to the movement’s growing appeal.[5] Hatzohar’s representation at Zionist Congresses rose from four delegates in 1925 to 52 in 1931.[1] In the 1931 elections to the Asefat ha-Nivḥarim in Palestine, it received 17 percent of the vote and became the second-largest party.[1]

At the Seventeenth Zionist Congress in 1931, the Revisionists proposed explicitly declaring that Zionism’s ultimate objective was a Jewish state with a Jewish majority throughout the Mandate territory, on both sides of the Jordan.[2] The INSS analysis reports that delegates voted 162 to 62 not to put the declaration to a substantive vote and attributes the decision to demographic and timing considerations; Jews then constituted less than 17 percent of the population west of the Jordan River.[2] A JCFA essay instead describes a large majority as voting against the resolution itself and recounts that Jabotinsky tore up his delegate card and declared, “this is not a Zionist Congress anymore.”[3] The accounts agree that the proposal failed but differ on the Congress’s precise procedure.

Disagreement over independent international political action and continued membership in the World Zionist Organization subsequently divided the Revisionists themselves.[1] At a meeting in Katowice in 1933, Jabotinsky suspended the Revisionist executive and assumed personal responsibility pending a world conference; a membership plebiscite endorsed his action by a large majority.[1] Opponents including Meir Grossman and Robert Stricker formed the Jewish State Party.[1] Grossman and his colleagues accepted the World Zionist Organization’s authority and political discipline, whereas Jabotinsky sought freedom to act independently internationally and ultimately to secede.[10]

The dissidents contested elections to the Eighteenth Zionist Congress in 13 countries, receiving 11,821 votes and three mandates.[10] Dissident Revisionists from Austria, England, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Palestine, Poland, Romania, and South Africa formally established the Jewish State Party during that congress.[10] The split thus concerned the institutional framework and discipline of Zionist political work, not simply whether Jewish statehood should be pursued.[10]

In 1934, the Revisionists organized a worldwide petition addressed to Britain’s king and Parliament and to governments and parliaments in the countries where Jewish signatories lived.[1] More than 600,000 Jews in 24 countries signed it.[1] That year also brought negotiations between Jabotinsky and David Ben-Gurion, producing three agreements: one against forms of party warfare such as libel and insult; another establishing a modus vivendi between Histadrut and Revisionist workers; and a third suspending the Revisionist boycott of Zionist funds while guaranteeing immigration certificates for Betar members.[1] Histadrut members rejected the labor agreement in a referendum.[1]

The final organizational break followed the Zionist General Council’s rejection of the Revisionist position on publicly stating Zionism’s ultimate aim and its decision to prohibit independent political activity by Zionist parties.[1] In 1935, the Revisionists voted to leave the World Zionist Organization.[1] The New Zionist Organization held its constituent assembly in Vienna that September, with Jacob de Haas presiding and Jabotinsky elected president.[1] Its objectives included a Jewish majority in Palestine on both sides of the Jordan, a Jewish state founded on civil liberty and social justice, and encouragement of return to Zion.[1]

The outbreak of the Second World War ended New Zionist Organization activity in continental Europe, although political work continued in Jerusalem, London, and New York.[1] In 1939, Jabotinsky called for suspending the struggle against Britain during the war and concentrating on defeating Nazi Germany.[1] He advocated a Jewish army fighting alongside the Allies and a Jewish World Council to represent the Jewish people at a future peace conference.[1] He died in New York in August 1940.[1]

The Revisionists rejoined the Zionist Organization in 1946, citing the Biltmore Program’s adoption of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine as a Zionist objective.[1] The Jewish State Party merged that year with the returning Union of Zionist Revisionists, which used the name United Zionist Revisionists.[10] Forty-two Revisionist delegates were elected to the Twenty-Second Zionist Congress in 1946.[1]

Hatzohar’s early program called for reestablishing the Jewish Legion as part of the British garrison in Palestine and developing the Jewish Colonial Trust into a principal instrument of economic activity.[1] It sought to press Britain to implement what the movement understood as the original intention of the Balfour Declaration.[1] Although strongly critical of British policy, Hatzohar maintained that it was not anti-British and sought Anglo-Jewish cooperation through international political pressure on the British government.[1] Its approach combined criticism of the Mandatory administration with proposals for cooperation under a different British policy.[1]

The movement rejected reliance on limited schedules of immigration certificates and an overriding emphasis on agricultural settlement.[1] Its alternative included private initiative and investment, industrial development, and intensive cultivation of small agricultural plots.[1] A proposed “settlement regime” would use legislation and administration to encourage large-scale Jewish immigration and settlement, including land reform, protection of local industries, and a favorable fiscal system.[1] These proposals connected the political demand for statehood with measures intended to expand the country’s capacity to absorb Jewish immigrants.[1]

Labor relations were another major component of its economic program.[1] Hatzohar advocated compulsory arbitration of labor disputes and proposed outlawing both strikes and lockouts during the state-building period.[1] Conflict over employment in Palestine led Revisionists and Betar members to leave the Histadrut and establish an independent National Labor Organization in 1934.[1] The unsuccessful labor agreement negotiated by Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion that year represented an attempt to establish working relations between the competing organizations without eliminating their institutional differences.[1]

Jabotinsky opposed the socialist views dominant in the Zionist movement, favored a more liberal economic structure, and advocated a more zealous defense policy than the Labor movement.[5] Avi Shilon, writing in Tikvah Ideas, characterizes him as an anti-socialist founder of a right-wing movement who, in 1925, envisaged a classical-liberal Jewish state with no official governmental role for religion.[11] In a separate Tikvah Ideas essay, Rick Richman interprets Jabotinsky’s organizational initiatives as efforts to redirect Zionism away from what he considered Weizmann’s excessive caution and Ben-Gurion’s excessive socialism.[12]

Betar became the movement’s principal associated youth organization.[1] Its early development was distinct from Hatzohar’s founding: in late 1923, Zionist youths in Riga began planning a national Jewish youth movement inspired by Tel Hai and Joseph Trumpeldor.[8] In 1928, Jabotinsky placed Betar under the Revisionist party.[8] The Jerusalem Center’s party glossary describes Betar’s program as combining immediate Jewish statehood, military preparedness, and “Hadar,” a code of honor and personal behavior, with Jabotinsky as its mentor.[13] It also notes clashes between Betar and Histadrut-affiliated youth movements arising from Betar’s anti-socialist position.[13]

Other associated bodies extended the movement’s reach beyond youth politics.[1] Berit ha-Ḥayyal organized army veterans; Aḥdut Israel provided a framework for Orthodox adherents; Berit Nashim Le’ummiyyot organized women; Masada served high-school students; and Nordia provided a sports organization.[1] These organizations accompanied the growth of Hatzohar’s political representation and its substantial following in Eastern and Central Europe.[1]

Jewish military organization remained central to Jabotinsky’s outlook and to the Revisionist Union’s advocacy of mass immigration and statehood.[6] The Irgun had a separate organizational origin: Abraham Tehomi and others established it after leaving the Haganah in 1931.[8] In 1936, Tehomi sought Jabotinsky’s sponsorship on the condition that the organization accept his authority.[8] About five months later, Tehomi broke with Jabotinsky and returned to the Haganah; the remaining Irgun consisted solely of Betar members and was smaller and weaker.[8] This relationship developed after Hatzohar’s foundation rather than constituting part of its original establishment.[8]

In Poland, authorities secretly assisted both the Haganah and the Revisionist-linked Etsel, or Irgun, through military training, a limited supply of arms, and arrangements for illegal immigration.[4] In spring 1939, a secret camp in the Carpathian Mountains trained 25 Etsel commanders who had arrived from Palestine.[4] The Revisionists also helped expand illegal immigration to Palestine into a mass movement, bringing thousands of European Jews by ship through 1940.[1]

Mass immigration proposals assumed particular importance in the mid-1930s.[4] Jabotinsky published a ten-year “evacuation plan” in Poland in September 1936, proposing the immigration of 1.5 million Eastern and Central European Jews, including 750,000 from Poland.[4] A Jerusalem Center essay traces an earlier formulation to 1935 and notes that Ben-Gurion proposed a similar mass-aliyah scheme at almost the same time.[3] The later Revisionist program likewise included a ten-year plan for transferring and absorbing 1.5 million Jews.[1]

By 1938, representatives of the New Zionist Organization were promoting an international conference, a ten-year plan for Palestine, and reform of the Jewish Agency.[14] Benjamin Akzin and other representatives presented a program envisaging the settlement of 1.5 million Jews in Palestine.[14] Jabotinsky opposed partition and favored a Jewish majority in Palestine on both sides of the Jordan.[14] The New Zionists summarized their attachment to Palestine in the declaration that “there is only one country that can become the real Jewish home and that is Palestine.”[14] These proposals belonged to the later New Zionist Organization and its leaders, rather than constituting a separate founding platform issued by Hatzohar in 1925.[14]

Hatzohar made an explicit declaration of Jewish statehood a central issue in organized Zionist politics, pressing for a Jewish-majority state while disputing the leadership’s diplomatic methods and institutional restrictions.[1] Its growth from four delegates at the 1925 Zionist Congress to 52 in 1931 demonstrated the expansion of a movement that combined political Zionism, opposition to socialism, and demands for organized Jewish defense.[1] Its particularly strong Polish base connected that political program with communities seeking opportunities for immigration to Palestine.[4]

The Jerusalem Center’s essay on the rise of Israel argues that Jabotinsky and the Revisionists stood apart in publicly identifying Jewish statehood as the goal before conditions deteriorated in Germany and Poland and the Arab revolt began.[3] It contrasts the 1931 confrontation with the position six years later, when a plurality of World Zionist Organization leaders supported the Palestine Royal Commission’s proposal for a sovereign Jewish state in a partitioned Palestine.[3] The Revisionists’ own return to the Zionist Organization in 1946 was explicitly linked to the Biltmore Program’s adoption of the Jewish-commonwealth objective.[1]

The movement’s institutional legacy did not pass directly into parliamentary success for its own electoral list.[1] Former Irgun members founded Herut in October 1948, and Herut won 14 seats in the first Knesset election in 1949.[1] Before that election, Menachem Begin invited Hatzohar members to join his party, but Hatzohar chose to run separately and failed to pass the electoral threshold.[8] The result left the Revisionist list without Knesset representation while Herut secured a parliamentary presence.[1]

A worldwide union called Berit Herut ha-Zohar was established in 1950, with Herut as its organization in Israel.[1] Hatzohar united with Herut for the 1951 election.[8] The sequence—from a party within the World Zionist Organization, through Revisionist secession and subsequent return, to union with Herut—formed the organizational course of its legacy.[1][8]

Conflict with Labor Zionism involved both ideological hostility and serious political accusations.[1] Opponents frequently called Revisionists “fascists,” a label used in the struggle over the movement’s ideology and tactics rather than an uncontested description of Hatzohar.[1] Antagonism intensified after two young Revisionists were accused of assassinating Mapai leader Ḥayim Arlosoroff in 1933; Palestinian courts acquitted both, but the affair continued to affect the political atmosphere.[1]

The evacuation proposal attracted a different controversy.[4] Polish government leaders welcomed it, whereas Jewish newspapers criticized it as illusory and as indirectly accepting the authorities’ contention that Polish Jews were harmful or redundant.[4] Jewish public opinion also opposed the proposal as irresponsible publicity that could assist antisemitic governments.[1] These objections concerned both its practicality and its political implications.[4]

The boycott of Nazi Germany and the Transfer Agreement were further subjects of intra-Zionist disagreement.[15] Jabotinsky was a staunch opponent of the agreement and a leading supporter of the boycott.[15] In a debate on the issue, the Revisionist minority proposed explicit Zionist support for the boycott and efforts to expand it.[15] The dispute formed part of the wider political struggle between the Revisionists and the Labor movement over how to respond to the predicament of German Jewry.[15]