|
Shochat, Mania (Wilbushewitcz) (1880-1961)
Mania
(Wilbushewitcz) Shochat, leader of HaShomer organization
Born on her father's estate in Belorussia, Mania Wilbushewitcz left
home at a young age to work in her brother's factory in Minsk in order
to learn about workers' living conditions and help them. She became associated
with revolutionary circles and was arrested in the summer of 1899. While
in prison, she met Zubatov, the chief of the Secret Police in Moscow.
He suggested a workers' movement with his support, which would be loyal
to the Czar. He convinced her to establish a Jewish workers' party which
would be concerned with professional and economic matters and would abstain
from politics.
Under his influence, she started to establish the Jewish Independent
Labor Party in the summer of 1901. The strikes they declared were successful
because secret police agents supported them. They were opposed by the
Bund and other Jewish Socialist groups.
After the Kishinev pogrom, and with changes in government policies,
the party dissolved in the summer of 1903. In 1904 her brother, Nahum,
invited her to visit Eretz Yisrael. She traveled through the country for
a year and concluded that collective agricultural settlement was an essential
condition for the development of a Jewish country. In 1907, Mania went
to Europe and the United States to study various communist settlements.
Upon her return she sought a group of like-minded individuals, and became
associated with the Bar Giora group led by Israel Shochat. Under her influence,
the group settlement on a farm near Sejera (Ilaniyah) and tried setting
up a collective farm in 1907-1908. This was the first attempt at collective
settlement in Eretz Yisrael.
In 1908 she married Shochat and they were among the founders of HaShomer
in 1909. When World War I began, the Turkish authorities exiled Mania
and Israel Shochat to Boursa, Turkey. After attending the Poalei Zion
convention in Stockholm, they returned to Eretz Yisrael in 1919 and joined
the Ahdut HaAvodah party. In 1921, Mania Shochat was a member of the first
Histadrut delegation to visit the United States. Her presence caused an
uproar as Bundists and Communists recalled her previous collaboration
with the Moscow Secret Police.
In the later years, Mania Shochat became active in Kibbutz Kfar Giladi
and in Jewish-Arab cooperation. In 1948, she joined the Mapam party and
settled in Tel Aviv, where she devoted herself to social work and writing.
[Top] [People]
[ Zionist Century] [Homepage]
|
|