Berl Katznelson

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Berl Katznelson (1934)

Berl Katznelson (also: Kaznelson ; born January 25, 1887 in Bobruisk , Russian Empire ; died August 12, 1944 in Jerusalem , League of Nations mandate for Palestine ) was a Russian Zionist who, after immigrating in 1909, became a leading figure in the Jewish labor movement in Palestine has been.

As a committed journalist, charismatic politician of socialist Zionism and close confidante of David Ben-Gurion , Katznelson was instrumental in preparing for the founding of the state of Israel .

Life

Katznelson was the son of a Choveve Zion member , was involved in Jewish socialist organizations in Russia at a young age and went to Palestine as a farm worker in 1909. In Belarus he had worked as a librarian and as a teacher of Hebrew and Jewish history and brought up the youth entrusted to him in the Zionist sense.

During the First World War he served in the Jewish Legion and then in 1919, alongside Ben-Gurion and Ben Zwi, co-founded the Achdut haAwoda (Zionist-Social Democratic Party, initially the strongest voice of the Yishuv ), in 1920 co-founded the Histadrut and in 1930 the Mapai .

In 1925 he founded Davar (German: "Word"), the first daily newspaper of the labor movement in Palestine, and remained its editor until his death. “His numerous essays are characterized by the sharp dialectic and conciseness of the Hebrew style.” In the paper (at that time the most popular Hebrew daily newspaper in Palestine) he fought both communist and revisionist tendencies and was one of the most recognized spokesmen for the yishuv. In contrast to most leaders within the (non-religious) labor movement, he advocated the preservation of Jewish values: observance of Shabbat , holidays , kashrut , circumcision , etc.

When there was increasing resistance to Jewish immigration from 1939, especially from the British, Berl Katznelson developed into an initiator and advocate of illegal immigration and even organized concrete help for Jewish refugees in the areas of Europe occupied by the National Socialists.

After Ussishkin's death in 1941, he was succeeded in the leadership of the Jewish National Fund by a committee of three, including Berl Katznelson (until his death), the other two being Meir Bar-Ilan and Abraham Granott.

Berl Katznelson died in 1944 and did not see the fulfillment of his vision, the founding of the Jewish state. The Beit Berl Academy , a town on the Kinneret and a kibbutz bear his name. On the 30th anniversary of Israeli independence (1978), the State of Israel issued a postage stamp with his likeness in his honor.

Golda Meir on Berl Katznelson in her autobiography (1975):

Berl was not an attractive man; he was short, his hair was always messy, his clothes always looked wrinkled; but his friendly smile lit up his face, and his - always a bit sad - eyes looked straight at the person opposite, so that nobody who had ever spoken to Berl could forget him. … In the twenties, thirties and early forties, until his death, everyone in the labor movement asked first: But what does Berl think about it? ... What did he believe in? Like most of us, he believed that our kind of socialism had to be different; that we were about to create a society, not just a trade union; and that the class struggle was meaningless in a community that did not yet have classes. For him, Zionism was one of the greatest revolutionary movements in the world, and he described it as the fulcrum on which contemporary Jewish history depended. For him, Zionism meant total rebellion against all slavery of the diaspora and the creation of a working Jewish population who were well versed in all areas of agriculture and industry.

Works

  • Collected works , 12 vols., 1946–1950 (he)

literature

  • Anita Shapira : Berl Katznelson. A socialist Zionist. From the Hebrew by Leo and Marianne Koppel. Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-610-00408-8 . Original edition Am Oved Publishers Ltd., Tel Aviv 1980.
  • Walter Preuss: Berl Kaznelson , in: Jüdisches Lexikon , Vol. III (Ib-Ma), column 640, Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1987 (reprint of the 1st edition Berlin 1928).
  • Shneur Zalman Shazar : Katznelson, Berl. In: Michael Berenbaum , Fred Skolnik (eds.): Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd ed. Vol. 12. Macmillan Reference USA, Detroit 2007, 23-26. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 1 Sept. 2014. Online: Katznelson, Berl

Web links

Commons : Berl Katznelson  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. so Walter Preuss 1928, Berl Kaznelson, cf. literature
  2. cit. according to the introductory page for Berl Katznelson at zionismus.info , haGalil , accessed August 31, 2014.