Katznelson, Berl

(1887-1944)

   Labor Zionist organizer, leader, and ideologist. Born in Bobruisk, Russia, he became active at an early age in the Jewish socialist groups of Russia as well as labor Zionists and socialist Zionists. Arriving in Palestine in 1909, he set about organizing labor unions among the Jewish farm workers. During World War I, he created Hamashbir, the consumer cooperative, and the beginnings of Kupat Holim, the cooperative sick fund. He supported Eliyahu Golomb in the latter's efforts to build the Hagana as a public organization not controlled by Hashomer Hatzair. In 1921-22, he traveled to the United States to raise money for the creation of Bank Hapoalim as a workers' bank, and in 1925, he founded the Histadrut daily newspaper Davar, becoming its first editor.

   In the 1920s, Katznelson was one of the architects of the alliance between the labor movement and World Zionist Organization (WZO) president Chaim Weizmann, an alliance that grew stronger as the challenge posed by Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky and his Revisionist Movement to the policies of both Labor and the WZO increased. Like Weizmann, Katznelson sought to maintain a pragmatic ideological line. While he opposed Jabotinsky's statements concerning the Arabs, his own attitudes hardened somewhat, especially after the Arab riots of 1929. He was suspicious of the policies of the British mandatory authority but had increasing reservations concerning the anti-Jewish attitudes of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and was openly critical of elements of the Zionist left who left Palestine for the USSR. Katznelson opposed the idea of partition in 1937 and was an ardent supporter of the Hagana's illegal immigration (Aliya Bet) activities. However, he was equally ardent in his criticism of the radicalization of the educational program of Hakibbutz Hameuhad (United Kibbutz Movement), as reflected in increasing leftist tendencies, an unwillingness to find any common ground with the Revisionists, and even a growing sympathy with the USSR.

   Between 1936 and 1939, Katznelson took steps to moderate this radicalization. Although his initial response to the White Paper of 1939 was to endorse a radical posture against Great Britain, the outbreak of World War II led him to join David Ben-Gurion, Weizmann, and most other Zionist leaders to demand the immediate creation of a Jewish state upon the defeat of Nazi Germany. Although the majority of Mapai supported the Biltmore Program of 1942, differences over the issue caused Mapai to split in mid-1944. Already deeply affected by the Holocaust, Katznelson suffered further from the split with Hakibbutz Hameuhad, and he died a few months later in Jerusalem.