Manya Shochat
Manya Shochat | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1880 |
| Died | 1961 |
Manya Shochat (or Mania Shohat) (Born 1880*; Died 1961) was Russian Jewish politician and the "mother" of the Kibbutz movement and collective settlement in Palestine.
Biography
In Russia
She was born Manya Vilbushevich in Belarus to middle-class Russian Jewish parents. As a young adult, she went to work in her brother's factory in Minsk to learn about working class conditions. She was imprisoned because of her contacts with Bund revolutionaries in 1899. There she was indoctrinated by Sergey Zubatov, the head of the Tsarist Secret Police in Moscow. Zubatov conceived a plan that fit with Shochat's ideological notions, through which workers would form "tame" organizations that would work for reform rather than for overthrow of the government. She was persuaded that this would also help achieve rights for Jews. She founded the Jewish Independent Labor Party. The party was successful in leading strikes because the secret police supported it, but was loathed by the Bund and other Jewish socialist groups. The party collapsed in 1903 following the Kishinev pogrom. At a loss following the loss of her political organization and path, she accepted an invitation from her brother Nachum, who was the founder of the Shemen soap factory, to visit Palestine in 1904.
In Palestine
Anticipating Arthur Ruppin, she understood that the model of plantation settlement where Jewish owners employed Arab workers, which was favored by the Baron Rothschild, could never be the basis for Jewish national life. She concluded that only collective agricultural settlement could produce Jewish workers and farmers who would be the basis for building a Jewish homeland. She returned in 1907 to help establish the country’s first ideologically based cooperative at Sejera, which later became the basis of the first Kibbutz. In 1908, with Israel Shokhat, she helped found the HaShomer guard organization, which evolved into the basis of Jewish self-defense. She later married Israel Shochat and had two children. In World War I, the Turks deported the Shochats and others who were not Turkish citizens to Bursa, in Turkey. They returned in 1919, after attending the Poalei Tziyon convention in Stockholm. She was active in the Gdud HaAvoda. In 1930, Manya Shochat was among the founders of the League for Arab-Jewish Friendship. With Rachel Yanaait she traveled to the United States to raise money and organize Aliya (immigration). In 1948 she joined the Mapam party.
Family
She married Israel Shochat, who was 9 years younger. She had 2 children with him. One of them was Gideon Shokhat. Gideon, a lieutenant in the IDF's airforce, committed suicide in 1967. In 1971, his daughter Alona married Arik Einstein, a famous Israeli performer. They had 2 daughters together. They later divorced, the daughters remaining with their mother. They later became Orthodox Jews, and the daughters married Uri Zohar's sons. Zohar was a good friend of Einstein and became one of the leading figures in the Orthodox community.
Sources
- Zionism and Israel Information Center by permission.