Katznelson, Berl

(1887–1944)

   Palestine labour leader. The son of a merchant in Byelorussia, Katznelson was an early supporter of the Zionist Socialist faction led by Nachman SYRKIN. In 1908 he emigrated to Palestine where he quickly became a leading figure in the Jewish labour movement. He was instrumental in setting up the consumer co-operative, Hamashbir Hamerkazi, and the workers’ sick fund, Kupat Cholim. A firm believer in public ownership of land and resources through the Jewish National Fund, he helped to develop the kibbutz system and the type of smallholders’ co-operative village known as moshav ovdim. Katznelson and BENGURION were the chief figures in the struggle for labour unity which led to the founding of Achdut Avodah in 1919, and to a united Labour Party, Mapai, in 1930. As editor of the Labour daily, Davar, founded in 1925, Katznelson was accepted as the chief ideological exponent of Labour Zionism in Palestine, and in certain respects he was one of the most admired and influential figures in the Second Aliyah. He was a self-educated but widely read intellectual, a man of strong moral convictions, a fine speaker and Hebrew stylist. Katznelson disagreed with WEIZMANN and Ben-Gurion in opposing the partition plan for Palestine, proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937. What he favoured was stepping up Jewish immigration, even when illegal, and a stronger resistance against restrictive British policies. In 1940 he reluctantly changed his mind about a partitioned Jewish state, which he advocated from then on.