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A kibbutz in the diaspora: The pioneermovement in Poland and the KlosovakibbutzRona Yona

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To cite this article: Rona Yona (2012): A kibbutz in the diaspora: The pioneer movement in Polandand the Klosova kibbutz, Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture, 31:1, 9-43

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A kibbutz in the diaspora: The pioneer movement in Poland and theKlosova kibbutz

Rona Yona*

In the mid-1930s the largest kibbutz movement in the world was in Poland. This articleexamines the formation of kibbutzim in Poland by focusing on the largest and mostinfluential of them all, Hehalutz (The pioneer) movement in Poland. It shows how thepreparation of pioneers seeking emigration to Palestine was transformed into anextension of the kibbutz movements in Palestine, and examines the implications of thisdevelopment. The article examines life in a diaspora kibbutz by focusing on theKlosova kibbutz, which was one of the leading kibbutzim in Poland.

Keywords: Hehalutz; Poland; Polish Jewry; hakhsharah; aliyah; HakibbutzHame’uhad; Klosova kibbutz; Yitzhak Tabenkin; Berl Katznelson

In the mid-1930s, the largest kibbutz movement in the world was, surprisingly enough,

outside Palestine. Though Israel is the place most associated with the kibbutz, from the

summer of 1933 to the autumn of 1935, Hehalutz (The pioneer) in Poland was the largest

kibbutz movement in the world, and the largest kibbutz outside Palestine was in Łodz, with

380 members.1

The pioneer movement in eastern Europe was the main source of members for

kibbutzim in Palestine until 1939.2 In the peak year of 1935, the World Organization of

Hehalutz in Warsaw, linked to the Histadrut (Federation of Jewish Labor) in Palestine,

claimed it had 21,400 members organized in over 1,000 kibbutzim across 25 countries,

mainly in eastern Europe (excluding the USSR).3 Though the numbers may be somewhat

inflated, they do reflect the remarkable and rapid growth of the movement from 1932,

during the peak years of the Fifth Aliyah (wave of immigration to Palestine, 1932–35).

Together with smaller pioneer organizations affiliated with other political parties such as

the religious Zionist Mizrahi and Revisionist Betar, there were an estimated 34,000 young

women and men living in kibbutzim in the diaspora, preparing to go to Palestine. The heart

of the movement was in Poland and Galicia, which had over half of all pioneers (over

18,000 members in some 550 kibbutzim).4 At the same time in Palestine, the total number

of members in the three kibbutz movements was much lower with only 5,000 in 1933,

increasing to 9,000 in 1935, thanks to the wave of immigration.5 After 1935, when

immigration to Palestine was sharply curtailed, and many kibbutzim in the diaspora

disbanded, Palestine could boast the largest movement worldwide.

Diaspora kibbutzim were fundamentally different from kibbutzim in Palestine. What

were they like when compared to our fixed images of the ideal agricultural commune in the

sunny Holy Land? Research on the kibbutz movement has focused on Mandate Palestine

and the State of Israel, which were at the center of the movement and its goals.6 But most

of the kibbutz members in Palestine in the interwar period began their socialization into

ISSN 1353-1042 print/ISSN 1744-0548 online

q 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13531042.2012.660376

http://www.tandfonline.com

*Email: ronayona@gmail.com

The Journal of Israeli History

Vol. 31, No. 1, March 2012, 9–43

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kibbutz life well before immigration. Until 1939, the movements in Poland and Palestine

were in fact parts of a greater whole. This study wishes to shed more light on the former.

I will examine here the formation of Polish kibbutzim and what it was like to live on

them. I will focus on the Klosova kibbutz, where the model of the diaspora kibbutz took

shape. Founded in a small village in eastern Poland, Klosova became the leading kibbutz

of Hehalutz in Poland during the above period. In 1932 Hehalutz in Poland was

reorganized into five regional kibbutzim based on the Klosova model, with thousands of

members. During the 1930s Klosova’s model was adopted by Hehalutz organizations in

other countries and by the smaller pioneer organizations established by rival movements.

This article deals only with the largest movement, called the General Section of Hehalutz

in Poland. I do not depict the kibbutzim of Hashomer Hatza’ir and Gordonia, which were

officially part of the Polish Hehalutz in the 1930s, but operated separately for complex

political reasons I cannot elaborate here.7 Nor do I address Galicia, which had separate

Zionist organizations. Like other pioneer organization these movements also adopted the

Klosova model.

I chose to focus on Klosova because it shaped the pioneer movement and was one of its

main symbols. Its story reveals both the unique traits of this new model and the common

experiences shared bymembers in the hundreds of kibbutzim that followed suit, though there

were important differences between kibbutzim in different places and organizations.

Examining one kibbutzwill enable a closer look at internal social practices and everyday life.

Hehalutz and hakhsharah

Hehalutz was established around 1917 in various countries (primarily in eastern Europe)

during World War I, following the collapse of tsarism in Russia. It was founded by young

Jews seeking to come to Palestine as pioneers. As the war was still raging and the roads

to Palestine were blocked, they began preparing themselves for that task. This was

called hakhsharah in Hebrew, which can be roughly translated as “self-preparation” or

“training.” The founders wanted Hehalutz to be large and open to any young Jew and set

forth two basic principles. The first was physical hakhsharah, meaning to become

accustomed to hard physical labor; the second was cultural hakhsharah, which mainly

included learning Hebrew, as well as Jewish history and the geography of Palestine.

Anyone who was single, fit, over 18 years old, and engaged in hakhsharah, could join

Hehalutz.8 The movement’s leadership was joined by the older and famous Joseph (Osia)

Trumpeldor, who would become one of its symbols following his heroic death in Tel-Hai

in 1920.9 During the first years the center of the movement was in Russia (including the

Ukraine) where most members and leading activists lived. Influenced by the Bolshevik

revolution, some organized in communes. By the mid-1920s, however, the movement in

Russia declined due to Soviet restrictions, and the center of Hehalutz shifted to Poland.

The Second Polish Republic, established in 1918, had the largest Jewish population in

Europe. With relatively extensive liberties in the new Polish nation-state, compared to the

previous tsarist rule, Jewish life in Poland flourished, soon becoming the most important

Jewish center in Europe. At the same time, a deteriorating economic situation, coupled

with anti-Semitic policies by the new state and initiatives of local government bodies in

particular,10 drove hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews to seek emigration. After

immigration to the USA was restricted in mid-1924, with limited alternatives, Palestine

became the main option for Polish Jewish emigration, and Poland became the main

source of Jewish immigrants to Mandate Palestine.11 Due to its importance, the World

Organization of Hehalutz relocated in Warsaw, next to Hehalutz headquarters in Poland.

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Hehalutz was the main option for young Jews without capital to enter Palestine. The

Mandate government restricted Jewish immigration and set economic criteria. Only Jews

with sufficient capital could enter freely and special permits (called certificates) were

required for people without capital who came as workers. Most Jews in eastern Europe

lacked the requiredmeans to enter Palestine. The certificates were distributed by the Zionist

Organization, which allocated some to Hehalutz.12 In the 1930s, the number of certificates

provided by the British hardly met the demand, and only a small percentage of the hundreds

of thousands who sought to leave Poland could do so. Still, Hehalutz enabled tens of

thousands of young Jews, who could not have emigrated otherwise, to escape political and

economic persecution and hardship, and inevitably, the Holocaust.13 It brought to Palestine

young men and women who increased the size and power of the Histadrut, the workers’

parties, and the kibbutz movements, and the overall growth of the Jewish Yishuv.

The formation of the Klosova kibbutz

How did the pioneers prepare for aliyah? The first years of hakhsharah in Klosova provide

a typical account of the activity of Hehalutz during the first period between 1918 and 1925,

in this case in a tiny Jewish community.

The remote village of Klosova (Klesiv in today’s Ukraine, Klesow in interwar Poland),

located among the swamps and forests of Polesia, was a new Jewish settlement. Several

hundred Ukrainian families were living there when the first Jewish families arrived in the

mid-nineteenth century. In 1900, a new railway between Kovel and Kiev connected it to

southwestern Russia, and a station called Klisov (in Russian) was placed three kilometers

from the village. The railroad brought with it economic development that relied on local

natural resources: wood, clay, and above all, granite. More Jewish families settled in the

village and near the train station following the Great War, just west of the new and sealed

border with the USSR, on the eastern edge of the new Polish state. Reaching some 25 in

number, Jewish families developed the local stone quarry and sawmill or worked as

craftsmen. The trains brought newspapers that contained new ideas, including Hebrew

papers, with information about Zionism and pioneering.14

The first pioneers of Klosova organized during the Third Aliyah (1919–23), according

to the romantic agricultural ideals of the time. They leased a plot of land and planted grains

during the summer, like the previous generation of settlers and pioneers in Palestine. This

undertaking did not last long, and apparently none of them arrived in Palestine. Other

places in Poland, with larger communities and a stronger pioneer movement, sent

hundreds of pioneers to Palestine.

Agricultural work, reflecting aspirations to cultivate the Land of Israel, proved

unsuitable and too expensive for large-scale hakhsharah as it required substantial capital

and training, especially on the farms owned by Hehalutz. Poland was undergoing industrial

development in large urban centers, and agriculture was losing its importance in the new

commodities’markets.With the beginning of the FourthAliyah (1924–25), a newmodel for

hakhsharah was taken from the pioneers of the Third Aliyah, who had established workers’

communes in Palestine. Hehalutz Headquarters now instructed pioneers to organize

hakhsharah of manual laborers in kibbutzim. Like generals who prepare for the previous

war, pioneers were preparing for the previous Aliyah. Some of the youth in Klosova

followed suit.

Unlike today, the term kibbutz did not refer to a communal agricultural settlement.

It meant a commune of pioneers in Palestine, working together, often constructing roads

and houses, draining swamps, and laying foundations for the economic development of the

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country. This model was created by the Work Battalion (Gdud ha-Avodah), a renowned

commune of workers established in Palestine by pioneers from Russia who were inspired

by the Bolshevik revolution.15

To found a kibbutz, the Klosova youth needed a group of people and a permanent

workplace. They contacted the nearby town of Sarny, 22 km to the west,16 which had a

larger Jewish population and a branch of Hehalutz with a couple of dozen members.

The Sarny pioneers had similar aspirations and were looking for a Jewish employer who

would hire them together, but their town had little to offer. With the help of their Klosovan

counterparts, they contacted Leibush Frimer, the Jewish work manager of the Klosova

quarry. Although Frimer found the whole idea ridiculous at first and thought they were too

weak and unfit for the hard work, he yielded to their pleas and agreed to ask the owners, the

Feinsteins, who were Zionists.17 However, the owners, who employed hundreds of

Christian workers laboring in harsh conditions, were also skeptical that the pioneers would

endure this work and agreed to admit 10 members for trial, assuming they would give up

after a few days. The Sarny members secretly collected their belongings at home and

established the Klosova kibbutz in the summer of 1924. With one girl from Sarny and two

more from Klosova, they found an empty warehouse, cleaned it, and set up boards as

beds on one side, another board for a table, and a kitchen on the other. Someone wrote a

sign in Hebrew, “Hehalutz House.”18 At a group meeting they chose their name, “The

Stonecutters’ Kibbutz in Klosova.” They knew this was an innovation in hakhsharah,

compared to the usual agriculture work, carpentry, and work in sawmills. Stonemasonry

was associated with the heroic efforts of the pioneers of the Third Aliyah, who paved roads

in Palestine. The hard physical labor ignited their imagination and enthusiasm.19

At the quarry, they were offended to discover that they were given easier tasks like

collecting gravel and conveying railcars. Theywanted to cut stones and prove they were just

as suited to thework as their non-Jewish co-workers whomocked their “white hands.” Some

of theworkers were former criminal convicts, sentenced to penal labor in the time of the tsar,

who had remained to work in the quarry after the collapse of the Russian empire. The two

groups had nothing in common. But as they proved their competence, attitudes toward the

pioneers gradually changed, especially at work, and they were assigned regular work with

the others. Relations with the non-Jewish villagers, though, remained unfriendly. Rumors of

the kibbutz spread in the area, andmembers from other branches joined. Though the owners

wanted to limit the number of pioneers at the quarry, the kibbutz managed to sneak in more

comrades, reaching some 40 members. In the winter of 1925 Hehalutz headquarters began

approving members of the kibbutz for aliyah and gave them certificates to enter Palestine.

New members joined from more distant towns and shtetls around Klosova. Kibbutz

members managed to obtain more work in Klosova and the nearby village at sawmills or

loading train cars. The kibbutz was successfully established.20

The young pioneers had only vague notions about the kibbutz and communal living,

and little experience in working and living independently. Zionists and relatives from

Klosova and Sarny helped in many ways. Though the pioneers’ work productivity was not

always satisfactory, local Jews provided jobs when possible. With expenses exceeding

income, Moishe Sheintuch the grocer often overlooked their debts. Butchers Avraham

Eisner and Shimon Shulner gave cuts of meat, and other Jews helped in whatever way they

could. This was how ordinary Jews supported the Zionist cause. The girls were in charge

of housekeeping, even though they had no previous experience. The landlord’s wife, Batya

Shapira, allowed them to use the oven as long as they kept kashrut, and taught them how to

cook. Some of them worked in the quarry, smashing stones into gravel.21

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When the founders of the kibbutz left for Palestine the kibbutz disintegrated. The

departure of experienced and active members created a vacuum in leadership, which

rendered diaspora kibbutzim extremely unstable. In Klosova, work in the quarry was halted

at the height of winter, and living conditions in the kibbutz, somehow bearable during the

summer, became extremely difficult. The hakhsharah season ended. Pioneers returned

home andwaited to go to Palestine.When a new season started in the spring of 1925, activity

resumed and the kibbutz was reestablished with the help of Hehalutz. This was easily done

so long as immigration to Palestine continued to flow, and new members joined Hehalutz.

The regional secretary of Hehalutz in Volhynia, Batya Bendersky, helped reestablish

the kibbutz. Like many of the leading activists in Hehalutz in Poland in the mid-1920s,

she was a refugee from the USSR who had fled Soviet persecution of Zionist activists.

Bendersky recognized the quarry’s potential as a large employer for pioneers. It employed

up to 2,000 workers at times, almost all year round, something not easily found in the

rural provinces of eastern Poland; it was owned by Jews who were also Zionists and

demonstrated their support; and it was suitable for cultivating a new type of pioneer, an

urban proletarian to work outside the agricultural domain. Bendersky reorganized the

Klosova kibbutz as the Volhynia regional hakhsharah and sent new members from the

entire region. The turnover of people was high, with people leaving after six months of

work, qualifying them for a certificate to Palestine. A constant flow of new members was

essential for maintaining the kibbutz.22

The kibbutz was an unusual sight in the small village and the surrounding rural area – an

organized group of Jewish youth working together by day, dancing by night. The local

inhabitants grew accustomed to seeing them march enthusiastically to work and back,

loudly singing pioneer songs. They called them “Palestyncy” (Palestinians), after learning

they were preparing themselves to go and build Palestine for the Jews. Performing hard

physical labor for low wages was an exception in Polish Jewish society, where most Jews

were self-employed small merchants and artisans. Jewish laborers in agriculture and

industry were rare due to historical reasons, the structure of the Polish economy and anti-

Semitic policies, as well as Jewish cultural tendencies.23 The pioneers were regarded by

both Jews and Christians as working in “non-Jewish” jobs. On the Sabbath eve, Jews from

Klosova came to watch the pioneers dance. Jews and non-Jews from the surrounding area

would come to marvel at the pioneers’ work in the quarry. Jewish youth from Sarny would

spend evenings in the kibbutz. When the first group left for Palestine, many came to say

goodbye, calling: “See you in our land.”24

This somewhat idealized account of Klosova’s formation is common. It is repeated with

local variations in hundreds of kibbutzim formed in interwar Poland. It can be found both in

contemporary ideological writing as well as in the nostalgic memoirs of people reminiscing

about their long-gone youth. Still, the account reveals an interesting relationship between the

kibbutz and Jewish society, marked by both cooperation and mutual rejection. On the one

hand, the kibbutz was founded with the help of the Jewish population, which provided work,

credit, and practical assistance. After all, these were the sons and daughters of community

members, often sharing their parents’ Zionist dreams. On the other hand, kibbutz values

were a negation of Jewish life in the shtetl. They professed hard physical labor and

communal life – not the traditional study of religious texts, individual entrepreneurship, and

commerce. The pioneers’ kibbutz was an alternative Jewish group with revolutionary

potential. There was also ideological opposition to Zionism amongOrthodox Jews, as well as

Jewish socialists like the Bundists and communists, or even plain parental resistance to

their children leaving home for an unknown adventure, like in the case of the Sarny group,

who left home secretly.

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The relationship between the Jewish community and the pioneers depended on the

popularity of Zionism. Zionist activity in Poland fluctuated between periods of growth

and decline, which correlated with the short and ever larger waves of aliyah (1919–21,

1924–26, 1932–35, commonly known as the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Aliyot). There were

short periods of enthusiasm and even hysteria, during which Zionism became a mass

movement and Hehalutz enjoyed increasing membership and public esteem. The waves of

Zionist enthusiasm increased between the twoworld wars. Between them lay “a cemetery,”

as one Zionist called it, years of general indifference and even hostility toward Zionism,

when other Jewish movements came to the fore.25 Zionist activity drastically diminished

and was confined to small circles of dedicated individuals who kept the movements alive.26

In these periods Hehalutz was also pushed to the margins of public interest.

The spontaneous formation of the Klosova kibbutz depicted here, and of other

kibbutzim like it, was part of the wave of Zionist enthusiasm among Polish Jewry at the

peak of the Fourth Aliyah. Hakhsharah increased over tenfold, from some 200 to 2,500

people with little help from Hehalutz headquarters.27 But enthusiasm did not last long.

In 1926, when Palestine was hit by an economic crisis, it became clear that the country was

unsuitable for mass immigration. Popular interest in Zionism dwindled, bringing

fundraising and participation to a halt. At the end of 1926, with increasing unemployment

in Palestine, the British government stopped issuing certificates for immigrants without

capital altogether, as previous certificates were left unused. Some immigrants, among

them pioneers, returned to Poland penniless and disappointed, and shattered the reputation

of Zionism even further. Like other Zionist organizations, Hehalutz began to disband.

Thousands of members left and branches ceased to exist. Hakhsharah centers were

abandoned. There was no point in preparing for immediate aliyah. Hehalutz headquarters

had no money, not even for stamps or bread, and could not assist the pioneers. It was at risk

of disappearing altogether like smaller pioneer organizations did in 1927, when the

economic crises in Palestine deepened.28

When Zionist enthusiasm dwindled in 1926, tensions between the kibbutz and the

community intensified, and many left the kibbutz. Parents now opposed their children

leaving for hakhsharah. With no prospects for aliyah, they saw it as unnecessary

hardship. In Klosova, a communist cell was discovered in Passover 1926. The secretary

Israel Waxman and his deputy shifted their support to communism. They withheld the

instructions of the movement headquarters and sabotaged the aliyah of over a hundred

pioneers.29 In times of decline in Zionist activity, rebellious Jewish youth, seeking action,

would often move to other radical movements like the Jewish Socialist Bund or the

underground Polish Communist Party. Those who stayed in the kibbutz were mocked at.

They were seen as wasting their time and energy. But the kibbutz members, now fewer in

number, defied the cynicism of their critics. For example, during Shavuot (spring) 1926,

members of the Klosova kibbutz had no food or money. As workers in the quarry were paid

in stamps usable at the owner’s canteen, if there was no work, they had no food. They

nonetheless rejected aid from local Jews, who were by now less supportive, preferring to

remain hungry for two days, sing songs, and seek help from fellow pioneers in the nearby

village, demonstrating their Zionist faith and independence.30

By the end of its third hakhsharah season in autumn 1926, the Klosova kibbutz was

disintegrating. Old members were leaving and there was no reason for new ones to join.

It seemed that after this season the kibbutz would cease to exist, as was the case with most

other kibbutzim that were formed during the peak of the Fourth Aliyah. But something else

happened. Klosova was one of four hakhsharah centers that survived the crisis of Zionism

in 1926–28 and continued to train pioneers, even though there was no aliyah for three

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years.31 During these years of crisis, Klosova became the leading force in the movement,

developing a new model for the pioneer movement in the diaspora. As will be shown,

Klosova replaced the temporary spontaneous kibbutz with a permanent one. The new

model emerged gradually in response to the deepening crisis in Palestine and in Zionism

abroad. By the end of the crisis a new model for hakhsharah and the diaspora kibbutz was

formed, which would reshape the entire pioneer movement.

Klosova: A permanent kibbutz in the diaspora

The young man behind the new model was seventeen-year-old Benny Marshak, later

known as the “Politruk [political commissar] of the Palmah,” whose main contribution

was to transform hakhsharah into an extension of the kibbutz movements in Palestine.

Marshak reorganized hakhsharah according to the principles of kibbutzim in Palestine and

established permanent ties with the dominant kibbutz movement.32 He represented a new

type of activist in Poland, who had closer ties to a Zionist organization in Palestine than in

Poland. During the 1920s, the Histadrut and kibbutzim in Palestine gradually established

their control over Hehalutz.33 Hehalutz was their main source of members and activists,

which enabled their growth and rise to power in the Zionist Organization. Benny’s story

demonstrates their growing influence.

Born around 1909 in the Jewish Pale of Settlement in tsarist Russia, BennyMarshakwas

the son of a small-town rabbi in Smorgon (today Smarhon in Belarus), not far from Vilnius.

His father was a member of the religious Zionist Mizrahi Party. The family moved

frequently in search of livelihood, heading south to the developing regions of Ukraine and

southwest Russia. Benny began studying in a traditional Jewish heder and listened to his

father’s rabbinic consultations, but soon theworldwar broke out, followed by the revolution

and civil war. In Ukraine, the ten-year-old Benny witnessed his father’s assassination by

White Army soldiers, for no reason, as in somany other cases. The familymoved to Odessa,

where the exceptionally energetic boy roamed the streets with other children, following

demonstrations, participating in the revolution and breakdown of social order. They burnt

pianos as a symbol of the bourgeoisie. Benny spent some time in a Russian school and then

the familymoved back to Smorgon in 1924, which was now under Polish control. There, the

restless youthwas drawn toHehalutz Hatza’ir (TheYoung Pioneer), the youthmovement of

Hehalutz, which combined both his socialist and Zionist inclinations.34

In 1926, Benny was chosen to participate in the first Hehalutz seminar, which was

headed by Yitzhak Tabenkin, leader of the largest kibbutz movement in Palestine,

Hakibbutz Hame’uhad (United Kibbutz Movement).35 Tabenkin had come to Poland with

a group of kibbutz members to help organize the rapidly growing pioneer movement on

behalf of the Federation of Jewish Workers, the Histadrut. They also intended to establish

direct ties with Hehalutz and recruit pioneers for their kibbutz movement.36 Until then

pioneers had joined a particular kibbutz movement only in Palestine, but henceforth direct

ties were maintained between kibbutzim in Palestine and Hehalutz by envoys who were

sent regularly to Poland, thereby strengthening the influence of their movements, and

eventually controlling the pioneer movements abroad during the 1930s.37

Tabenkin and the other envoys were sent to Poland even when Tabenkin was much

needed to help strengthen the new kibbutz movement that had been formed only two years

earlier in Palestine. But as the Fourth Aliyah streamed into Palestine, it became clear that

most immigrants did not join kibbutzim. The first Klosova pioneers, for example, ended up

in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Rehovot.38 The young kibbutz movement, numbering only

several hundreds, was desperate for new recruits. “The development of the kibbutz relies

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on establishing our position to prepare a reserve of pioneers [abroad],” argued Tabenkin in

internal discussions of the kibbutz secretariat. Others agreed, “this is our main hope.”39

In Poland, Tabenkin headed a seminar of fifty students training to be local activists in

Hehalutz. Though not the most diligent student, Benny was picked by Tabenkin for his

active, energetic nature and utter devotion. For the seventeen-year-old Benny, fatherless,

uprooted, and eager for action, his meeting with the charismatic 38-year-old Tabenkin

became, as he put it, “a deep fatherly-spiritual relation,”which lasted until his death in 1975.

He was captivated by Tabenkin’s vision and would become legendary for his personal

devotion to him, like a Hasid following his rebbe.40

Benny and other participants were very young, 17–18 years old, enthusiastic and

easily influenced. Under Tabenkin’s leadership, their training included mainly ideological

education in line with his kibbutz movement, which stressed the moral value of physical

labor. Work was not just an economic activity – a means to build a Jewish homeland – but

an ideal, a goal in itself. At the end of the seminar, which lasted several months, Benny

was fully recruited by Tabenkin and his ideology. He was sent by Hehalutz headquarters to

persuade the remaining members in Klosova not to abandon the place at the season’s end

and to maintain a permanent hakhsharah there.41

Leaders of Hehalutz wanted to sustain the movement even though aliyah had been

halted, and prepare for its renewal by the British.42 Preparation was needed to enable

immediate and maximal use of certificates, leaving no certificate unused. Finding people

and preparing them took time. Dedicated Zionists could not say when exactly aliyah

would be renewed, but they were certain it would, and needed to maintain activity. In the

meantime the economic crisis in Palestine deepened and the distribution of certificates

stopped completely. The question, therefore, was how the Klosova kibbutz could be

maintained without aliyah. New members did not come to replace the ones who had

finished their six months of training and returned home to wait for a certificate. It was

necessary to keep members inside the kibbutz, regardless of their prospects for emigration.

When Benny arrived in Klosova in August 1926, there were 55 members affiliated with

the kibbutz (including those who had finished their training and returned home). Benny

tried persuading members to stay and those who had already left to return, but had little

success. Members went home to celebrate the Jewish High Holidays and the kibbutz

disbanded. Only he and another member, Avraham Bialistozky, stayed.43 After the

holidays, a few members returned and Benny began recruiting new ones to the kibbutz

from Hehalutz branches in small towns across the region. He talked to Zionist youth, came

to the synagogue on Sabbath, and tried to persuade parents to let their children become

pioneers. Some were as young as 15–16 and were often not strong enough to endure the

hard labor in the quarry and harsh conditions in Klosova. They ran back home in shame

after a few days. Benny wrote to the Hehalutz headquarters, requesting that more people be

sent, and even went to his hometown, hundreds of miles to the north, to recruit people he

knew. The headquarters bought a wooden house from a farmer at the end of 1926 and the

kibbutz renovated it. Living conditions were somewhat improved when kibbutz members

left their windowless stable for their newly “renovated” home.44

During winter, with no work in the quarry and no food, they struggled to endure the

cold and hunger, subsisting on the frozen and rotten potatoes they had bought at the

beginning of the season. They declined assistance from their families. They had a lot of

spare time and a new idea was raised by Benny: this would be a permanent kibbutz, and

they would live there until they could go to the Land of Israel. Benny believed that a big

kibbutz would develop in Klosova and his strong faith encouraged the others. He kept

repeating his motto: “this is our home.” Some had doubts and left, others could not endure

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the hardship. Others still were captivated by the idea and stayed. The idea of Klosova as

their “home,” had profound implications. Although the Hehalutz leadership assumed

that emigration to Palestine – the desired “homeland” – would soon be renewed, and

encouraged pioneers to endure a little longer, the crisis in Palestine deepened and there

seemed to be no prospect of aliyah. Staying in hakhsharah had to acquire another

meaning, beyond preparation for immediate aliyah. For Benny, kibbutz life was the

expression of true pioneering. According to this view, the kibbutz was not a temporary

experience of hakhsharah but a way of life to be pursued in Palestine as well. Thus,

hakhsharah became the means for preparing members for kibbutzim in Palestine.45

Once the Klosova kibbutz ceased to serve the short-term, practical goal of aliyah, it

became a radical ideological movement. The envoys from the kibbutz movement in

Palestine strengthened the notion that pioneering was equated with kibbutz life. Benny

viewed hakhsharah as an extension of Tabenkin’s kibbutz movement in Palestine and

adapted Tabenkin’s radical ideology to the Klosova kibbutz. Benny claimed that only

kibbutz life could ignite enthusiasm. Perseverance in a kibbutz in the diaspora, in difficult

conditions, would enable “the revolutionary transition to a new life” and would cultivate

“complete pioneers,” determined to remain manual laborers in Palestine. In his view

Klosova was “suffering for the entire movement.”46

Defining hakhsharah as the home of pioneers redefined its relationship with the

surrounding Jewish society. The kibbutz was no longer an expression of popular

aspirations, since Jewish society now rejected Zionism. The marginalization of the kibbutz

led to radicalization. Klosova became an antithesis to Jewish society, creating an

alternative lifestyle that rejected and challenged contemporary Jewish life. Hakhsharah’s

new radical outlook reflected, and deepened, the rift between pioneers and their previous

homes and families. The radical ideology of a permanent kibbutz was unacceptable to

most parents. The kibbutz threatened to exert a stronger influence on their children,

diminishing parental authority and traditional family ties. Most hakhsharah members were

now runaways.47 They had no one to rely on but the kibbutz and their own hard labor.

Friendship and solidarity among the members were necessary to make Klosova work.

Benny’s deep belief in kibbutz life was contagious. Members were impressed by his

devotion to the kibbutz and the people. He was the first to get up for work and the last to go

to sleep, taking care of others’ needs and problems, always doing something. He showed

sincere concern for others and was utterly selfless. He continued to work, even when

injured, in order to meet their quotas at the quarry. Benny embodied the total sacrifice he

preached. During Passover, April, 1927, after a long and hard winter, Benny announced

that “The kibbutz has decided to stay for the holiday.” The reason was simple: “[to get]

used to living in the kibbutz not only in everyday life but also during a holiday.”48 This

was another step toward establishing a permanent kibbutz. Another reason was not to

relinquish hard-earned positions at the quarry that would ensure the growth of the kibbutz

in the summer. Not everyone agreed. Those who stayed celebrated the holiday in the

kibbutz. Others headed back home to celebrate with their families and enjoy a proper meal

and bed. They were told that going home meant leaving the kibbutz for good. But the

members who stayed were the ones who defined the kibbutz. This was a kind of “natural

selection” that fostered the radicalization of the kibbutz. Soon after Passover, the kibbutz

organized a May Day celebration in order to attract new recruits.49 Spring had come, and

with it, new members joined hakhsharah for the warm summer months. Klosova had

survived its first full Polish winter and was ready to start growing again.

By now, Benny was at the center of kibbutz life. The Christian peasants called the

pioneers “Marshaks” (Marshaki in Ukrainian), which also served as the local postal

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address. Benny was like the rebbe of a small group of young Hasidim. His last name was

humorously referred to as a Hebrew acronym for “our teacher and master hear our voice”

(Morenu Rabenu Shema Kolenu).50 The following Passover was celebrated in the kibbutz

with less opposition, and a special haggadah was written for the occasion. This is the first

kibbutz haggadah on record.51

The Klosova haggadah shows that the Passover celebration in Klosova had a different

meaning than the first Passovers of pioneers and kibbutz members in Palestine. In Palestine,

pioneers expressed their longing for distant families and traditions. The humorous Klosova

haggadah, on the other hand, written in Yiddish, called for liberation from parental authority.

Being close to home, members needed to distance themselves from their relatives and

communities. In this haggadah, Egypt symbolized hakhsharah, and the hope for “next year in

Jerusalem”was changed to the hope of “becoming a permanent kibbutz in the land of Israel.”

Theholidaywould becomeacentral event inPolishkibbutzim, symbolizing their autonomy.52

Two decisions taken during the winter of 1927 forged the permanent Klosova kibbutz.

First, eligibility for aliyah (receiving a certificate) now required members to remain on the

kibbutz well past the original six-month period. Second, it was decided to keep the sick in

the kibbutz and treat them there. This decision came even though many fell ill because

of the hard work, bad diet, cold, and poor sanitary conditions. Both decisions met with

continuous opposition, but were gradually passed and became binding for the entire

movement in the early 1930s. The decision to keep the sick in the kibbutz was originally a

naıve expression of solidarity. According to one account, several girls weakened by the

hard work and poor conditions, wanted to return home. In a discussion at the assembly an

older girl asked about those who had no home to return to – would only they remain in the

kibbutz? The sick girls were persuaded that it was unfair, and decided to remain. This

had happened before Benny’s arrival.53 The tendency to keep the sick was strengthened

by Benny’s ideological position. Since hakhsharah members came from diverse

backgrounds, socioeconomic gaps jeopardized the ideal of equality. Would only those

whose parents had enough money to afford the fare to Palestine, expensive taxes placed by

Polish authorities on emigrants, or daily needs like clothes and healthcare become pioneers

in Palestine? If pioneers were truly committed to equality and kibbutz life, solidarity with

those who could not return home for treatment had to be placed above individual needs.

This principle defined the group, consolidated it. A spontaneous decision made by current

members became binding policy for future members.

In the autumn of 1928, Benny heard of a couple in the kibbutz who had decided to get

married in Palestine. He told them to hold the wedding in Klosova, as a symbol for the

entire movement, which would show that Klosova was a real kibbutz and a home to its

pioneers. The kibbutz rented a separate apartment for the newlyweds. The wedding spread

the word that a family had been established in the kibbutz and that permanent hakhsharah

could take care of all human needs – or at least aspire to do so – including the challenges

of families and child rearing in the commune, just like kibbutzim in Palestine. However,

the wedding breached one of the original principles of Hehalutz, requiring pioneers to be

single before their emigration. Some of the heads of Hehalutz disapproved of the wedding.

When little Hanna was born, the first and only child of Klosova, Hehalutz headquarters

told Benny that he had gone too far.54

Gradually those who adopted the kibbutz ideology gathered in Klosova, and numbers

increased. The kibbutz found more work in sawmills in nearby towns and sent cells of

“veterans” to establish extensions of the kibbutz there. This method enabled the growth of

the kibbutz beyond the confines of one place. The veterans were replaced by new members

who joined Klosova and learned the ways of the kibbutz.55 The new communes were

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called “companies” (in the military sense), and formed a network of the kibbutz. This

model was taken from Palestine, where groups of pioneers were established wherever

work was found.56 By the end of 1928, with the partial renewal of immigration to

Palestine, Klosova and its companies had 140 members. In 1929, there were 280.57

The new model of hakhsharah as a network of economically independent communes

allowed for unlimited growth with scarce financial means. The companies were self-

sustaining and existed with minimal aid from Hehalutz headquarters. Once Zionism would

appeal to the youth again, they could easily join hakhsharah by duplicating Klosova’s

model. It seemed that Klosova had found a solution to the problem of maintaining the

movement in times when there was no prospect of aliyah. In his first visit there, a new

envoy of Hakibbutz Hame’uhad to Poland reported “when you are between the four walls

of this dining room you forget for a minute that it is snowing outside, and when you listen

to all the conversations you seem to be in one of the kibbutzim in the Land of Israel – such

is the similarity . . . the makers of the Hebrew revolution are made of the same

substance.”58 Klosova’s transformation was completed.

Rumors of Klosova traveled far and it became a symbol of Zionism, within and outside

Hehalutz. It symbolized a stubborn faith in Zionism in face of the Jewish public’s

skepticism. Aspiring pioneers from all across Poland came to Klosova. Zionists visited the

remote village to observe the pioneers at work. Many stayed over to converse and dance

with them at night. Even non-Jews would come, curious to witness these atypical Jews.59

When the economic crisis of 1929 hit Poland and unemployment surged, Klosova not only

endured the crisis but also began to spread. The flexible network of companies proved its

viability. In 1931 pioneers wandered in pursuit of work and established companies

wherever it was available. The quest for work spread the movement from eastern to central

Poland, the economic center of the country where pioneering was traditionally weaker.60

The network of kibbutzim expanded all over Poland, across hundreds of miles, and spread

its model throughout Hehalutz. Hehalutz headquarters reorganized the network into five

regional units of companies connected to a central headquarter, based on the Klosova

model. This dissemination made the other pioneer movements aware of the Klosova

model, which they adopted, including the Mizrahi youth, the General Zionists and even

Betar, which strongly opposed socialism.61

But not all was well. Klosova indeed demonstrated resolve and organizational skill in a

time of crisis, and celebrated the faith in Zionism in a time of despair. But the transformation

of hakhsharah into a kibbutzmovement immediately raised problems and concerns.Wewill

focus here on the two central issues. The first problem was that kibbutz ideology was

unsuitable for a large movement, since it appealed only to a few devoted individuals. The

majority of young Jews and Zionists were uninterested in kibbutz life. Would Hehalutz

ignore them? Linking hakhsharah to kibbutz values meant limiting Hehalutz and distancing

it from the wider public, contrary to the aims of its founders.62 Despite reservations, the

kibbutzim in Palestine established their control overHehalutz and turned the kibbutz into the

binding model in the 1930s.63 So long as Zionism was on the margins of Polish-Jewish life,

kibbutz ideology had advantages, and hakhsharah attracted mainly radical youth. But once

large-scale emigration to Palestine resumed (1932–35), Hehalutz became a mass

movement. As will be demonstrated below, the diaspora kibbutz faced a serious dilemma.

In the meantime, the second problem was at the center of attention – the quality of life

in the diaspora kibbutz. Practicing kibbutz life in Poland was a tremendous challenge

undertaken by very young and inexperienced people in difficult economic conditions.

The results were dubious, as will be shown in the following section, based on accounts

from Klosova.

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“This is our home” – Klosova as an open kibbutz

Jewish immigration to Palestine was renewed in 1929. Consequently, some pioneers lived

as long as four years on the kibbutz until their aliyah. By the end of the 1930s, when aliyah

decreased again and the growing pressures of Jewish youth to leave Poland could not be

fulfilled, people spent as long as six or seven years there. What was it like? According to

accounts, it was both terrible and exhilarating. One visitor observed: “Klosova is the heart

of the pioneer movement in Poland. All that is beautiful and all that is reckless is revealed

here . . . in dim beauty.”64 However, another envoy from Palestine remarked that

“fundamental corrections need to be made. The living conditions are horrible.” The envoy

was troubled by the superficial understanding of pioneering – the greater the hardship, the

better the preparation for becoming a pioneer. “Pioneering means suffering, even when

there is no need,” he noted. “The kibbutz managers do not understand the need to organize

more comfortable living conditions. There is a wanton attitude to the individual and his

health.” The kibbutz admitted people regardless of accommodation and jobs. According to

his estimate there were forty too many people at the time of his visit and the kibbutz

management wanted to recruit more.65

In its early years, Klosova, led by the young Benny Marshak, is best defined as an

anarchist commune. Going to work was voluntary. There was competition over work spots

in the quarry, and Benny would get up first and rush to the quarry to mark spots for the day.

He would then return and gently wake up every other member and ask if he or she could

work today. Those who said they were sick were left to rest. Some people who came stayed

for days without ever being told to work. “Everything is allowed and tolerated, everything

but leaving,” one member summarized the principles of Klosova.66 Benny relied on total

trust and free will, creating a highly chaotic and vibrant kibbutz. Eventually, with the

establishment of a routine, the kibbutz grew less anarchic, though it remained quite chaotic.

More discipline was enforced and social pressure was applied to those who did not work,

especially during the late 1930s, when members spent prolonged periods in hakhsharah.

According to the ideals of the “large kibbutz” championed by Hakibbutz Hame’uhad,

Klosova was open to any young Jew, regardless of his/her Zionist background, not just party

members or youth movement graduates as was the case in other pioneer organizations in

Poland. This principlewas called “faith inman,” a belief that anyone could becomeapioneer,

whethermiddle class or poor, educated or illiterate, religious or atheist, with a profession and

work experience or without having worked a single day. New members needed to be

approved by Hehalutz headquarters, but this regulation was often disregarded, andmembers

were admittedwithout approval and supervision by the headquarters. This openness turned it

into a general organization of pioneers (though politically affiliated), and the largest of them

all. The openness was both a principle and a practical consideration, geared toward

constructing amassmovement, but it alsomade it extremely difficult to create a coherent and

functioning movement. There was also a chronic lack of activists to instill its values.

The people

Klosova’s revolutionary spirit attracted all sorts of youth: a youngwoman from a communist

family seeking communal living; a Russian Jewish communistwith no Jewish education, the

brother of a local member of the Cheka (early Soviet security organization), who was

traumatized by the arbitrary executions and fled to Poland to renew his connection to

Judaism; a Belzer Hasid from distant Galicia who wanted to quit religious life and found in

Klosova a Hasidic-like liveliness and intimacy of dedicated and impoverished enthusiasts

dancing in ecstasy into the night; graduates of Russian gymnasia; a penniless orphan whose

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journey to Klosova was her first ever train ride on her own; a yeshiva student; a traditional

heder pupil; a boywith some home schooling; a student of a Polish gymnasium,who had felt

Polish until her teacher began to incite hatred of Jews; a discharged soldier; remnants from

the thousands who had joined hakhsharah during the peak years of 1924–25 and were still

dreaming of Palestine. Some ran away from Klosova after a day or two, but some stayed in

the kibbutz their entire life.67

They came as groups of friends or forlorn individuals, each one with his or her own

story. Many were uprooted, futureless, traumatized, feeling that the Polish state offered

them no future as Jews, economically or socially. Some had families and opportunities that

they rebelled against by joining the “Hebrew Revolution.” The diversity was stunning.

They were all looking for a Jewish alternative. Few knew Hebrew, some did not even

know Yiddish. Klosova took them all. But most were youth from rural Volhynia and the

eastern provinces of Poland. Volhynia was far from the centers of both Hasidism and

secular Judaism in Poland, as well as the centers of Polish culture. Traditional Judaism and

Hasidism were strong there, but modern secularism and socialism also had some impact.

Combined with the economic decline of Jews in eastern Poland, a strong if unsophisticated

support of Zionism emerged. They spoke Yiddish and heard about Zion and the socialist

revolution across the border.68 Few had ever experienced hard physical labor. When

graduates of Zionist youth movements joined Klosova in 1928–29, they brought with

them more substantial knowledge about Zionism, Hebrew, and the kibbutz.

The general cultural and educational level of the Polish pioneer movement was

comparatively low. Unlike the Russian or German movements, which had many university

students and gymnasia graduates, in Poland the overwhelming majority of pioneers had an

elementary education (84–91%), sometimes even less, and the educational level

continued to decline during the 1930s, reflecting that of Polish Jewish youth in general.69

Education was somewhat higher in the separate hakhsharah of the youth movements,

where there were more gymnasium graduates.70 In Hehalutz, the occasional gymnasium

graduate or Hebrew speaker would usually take on leadership roles in the kibbutz.

The arrival

Pioneers had vague notions about the kibbutz and Palestine. They knew that the living

conditions in kibbutzim in Palestine were hard and that hunger was not uncommon. In

Klosova naıve Zionist dreams were shattered. One girl, for example, imagined Palestine as

a vegetable garden and instead came to find a quarry of dark stones.71 In a memoir based

on his diary, Shlomo Kantor gives a typical account of his first days in the kibbutz. He had

a good income in the city of Kovel, a dying love affair, and had been active for several

years in a branch of Hehalutz, where he met Benny and heard of Klosova. After months of

vacillating, he sold his violin and decided to become a worker who would build his life in

Palestine. He was uncomfortable with the fact that he would have to eat non-kosher food in

the kibbutz, for as tensions between hakhsharah and the Jewish public in Poland grew, its

secular nature had become established. Disregard for tradition was part of the pioneers’

reaction to the Jewish public’s retreat from support of Zionism. Though it was never

officially closed to observant members, no efforts were made to accommodate their needs

or to appease public sensibilities. Kibbutzim usually worked on the Sabbath and used pork

fat. Those who lit candles or prayed were mocked.72

In April 1928, Shlomo and a friend came to Klosova:

[We] arrived before dawn in this murky valley and were horrified by the sight. We had falleninto a monstrous hole [the quarry], and were very bewildered and disappointed. That’s it?

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Woe are the eyes! The sight is terrifying . . . depression, filfth, and poverty, this dark filth,dear God! We wanted to escape immediately, return home. But that too was impossible, therewas no one to talk to, and we were stuck in this foul place. Slowly we started looking around.

A big wooden house in the middle of a field, alone in the wilderness of Polesia. In themiddle a crude and heavy long wooden table. On it are laid (pardon, lying) 2–3 bundles ofrags, that is, people wrapped in black rags. Their feet are wrapped in crude sacks and ropes,with parts of black tires of car wheels [as soles]. The cold and emptiness around cry out to theskies, to despair. Is this it? Is this the kibbutz? I feel sorry for O. [my friend] – we both ran outand cried. . . . ”73

Shlomo continues his account later in the evening, after having spent the day in hiding

nearby, not knowingwhat to do: someone lit a blackened lantern in the large shack, and black

heavyfigures started appearing, gathering slowly – “ragsof people,” tired creatures, trudging

along after work. They silently filled the large, empty hall and formed a circle. Shlomo stared

at this weird and surreal sight. He had wanted to run away but now was unable to move.

Klosova was at once appalling and fascinating. Shlomo sensed some mystical hidden force

connecting the people together. Someone approached and encouraged him and O. not to be

broken by the disappointment and shock. The account continues with a description of

Shlomo’s internal transformation. Hard work by day, a close intimacy with complete

strangers by night – this was a life without his family for the first time. Gradually, human

faces emerged from the filth and darkness. There was nothing to do after sunset. One night,

someone started humming a tune full of longing. As it intensified, people formed a circle and

started dancing together, gradually entering a trance. The dancing continued deep into the

night, fueled equally by their despair and enthusiasm. “Another bizarre sight,”wrote Shlomo.

Shlomo’s friend left, but soon wrote him that she regretted her decision. He stayed,

even though working on the Sabbath and, especially, eating pork vexed him. Within a few

weeks, he grew somewhat accustomed to the place. Before coming to the kibbutz he had

decided that it was only a means for reaching Palestine, and that he would not live in a

kibbutz in Palestine. Now he considered staying. “Can one really change so quickly?” he

wondered. He witnessed some things that he opposed. Two months later, Shlomo was fully

immersed in the place and had become a bona fide “Klosoviak.” The kibbutz had become

his entire being. He became a fanatic, severing all ties with the past, interested in the

kibbutz alone. He was now a part of a group, calling themselves “khalyastre” – Yiddish

for a cheerful and wild gang.74

Shlomo lived on a kibbutz all his life. His account provides a glimpse into the

charismatic impact of the intense kibbutz experience on young people. In his case it led to

complete “conversion,” much like the adoption of a new faith or joining a sect. Shlomo

was one of those who had come with many doubts and a clear decision not to join a kibbutz

in Palestine, but was swept away by the mesmerizing energy of the devoted group.

Another diary recounts the common reaction of shock and horror: “Day 2: it is the

second day since I last ate. For some reason no one calls me to the table to eat. No one

serves me [food] . . . I see bread on the table and everyone comes and takes a bite but I am

ashamed . . . yesterday I put down my case and hung up my coat and hat – and today

I found nothing. Everyone I ask whether he has seen my hat laughs at me.” No one asked

his name or why he was there, but on the third day, he joined the dancing circle, and

afterward approached the table, ate with everyone, and began to feel at home. Scraps of the

diary were later found in a box containing the kibbutz papers, after its owner had thrown it

away, disavowing yet another piece of his private life.75

The confiscation of personal belongings by the collective, most importantly, coats and

shoes, and the offensive manner in which it was conducted, was part of the initiation rite.

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Runaways usually came with barely any belongings and were spared this unpleasant

welcome. The confiscators remained anonymous, thus avoiding direct confrontation with

new members. The act was called “putsn,”76 cleaning up newcomers (taken perhaps

from thieves’ slang), stripping them of their previous life and identity along with their

possessions. Now newcomers had to share the communal clothes storehouse, as they

needed clothes for work. It had chronic shortages of goods, with people often walking

around barefoot.

Other pranks and teasing, somewhat cruel in nature, tested the moral fortitude and

commitment of the newcomer. A favorite one was: “Did you cross the river on your way

here?” When he or she replied yes, the standard rejoinder followed: “You should have

jumped in!” Everyone then burst into laughter.77 Newcomers, surrounded by strangers and

anxious about their unknown future, hoped for some friendly attention and comfort, but

were embarrassed if not humiliated. Their resolve and fortitudewere tested. And the biggest

test of all still lay ahead – enduring the hard work. As they made it through their first days,

they would eventually realize that the members were in fact laughing at themselves, using

humor to cope with the hard and gloomy routine. Still, entering the intimate commune was

not easy.With time, rumors of the difficult life in hakhsharah spread, and people grewmore

aware of the hardship ahead of them, though the shock would still be overwhelming.

Opposition and internal criticism

Not everyone overcame the initial shock, and many left. Most available sources are by

those who remained and express acceptance of kibbutz values and practices, or justify

them. Personal accounts of disappointment and rejection are harder to come by.

Opposition inside the kibbutz was often concealed, and those who rejected the kibbutz left

us no account of their departure in Hehalutz publications. Some information can be gleaned

from memoirs in anthologies, written by those who left the kibbutz in Palestine and

politely expressed disagreement and criticism, and from other random sources.78 One

youth, for example, was too young to endure the hard work when he came to Klosova. He

describes crying at night, and his shame at returning home to his mother who had strongly

opposed his departure.79

Another group of three friends who came from Bialystok accepted the hard work and

poor food but not the atrocious sanitary conditions. They criticized the excessive sharing of

belongingswhich fostered disregard for communal property (clothes, shoes, eating utensils),

and the rude behavior, with everyone grabbingwhat he could. They demanded changes, like

allowing the sick to return home for treatment. Benny attacked them in the kibbutz assembly,

recruiting the group’s support against them. After one of them died in a tragic accident, their

families insisted that they leave. They moved to another less extreme kibbutz.80

One member, who returned to Klosova in 1929 more experienced and mature,

demanded improvements. He and others opposed the habit of asking whether people could

go to work as many took advantage of the custom, claiming to be sick when they were

simply too tired or lazy to get up for another hard day of work. Others also opposed the

overcrowded conditions and wanted to stop admitting members who had not been sent by

Hehalutz headquarters. They tried to initiate a discussion on these “sacred” principles at

the assembly, but Benny ended the discussion by asking them why should they have the

right to be in the kibbutz and others not. When Benny went away for a few days they

initiated a discussion about the excessive amount of “sickness” in the kibbutz. When

Benny returned he disapproved of this, even though it resulted in fewer instances of sham

illness. According to one account, people respected Benny’s dedication and complete

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selflessness. He took care of general affairs in addition to attending work regularly,

working to complete exhaustion. They refrained from arguing with him, and yielded even

when he was wrong.81 He was too influential and fanatical to allow change within the

kibbutz, and attempts to challenge his leadership were unsuccessful.

When youth movement graduates joined Hehalutz and hakhsharah in 1928–29, they

brought their traditions to the kibbutz. One member was laughed at for insisting on

speaking Hebrew. Heated debates revolved around singing the socialist anthem “The

International.” Some were afraid to reveal their movement affiliation, since their youth

movements had competing kibbutz movements in Palestine (Hashomer Hatza’ir and

Gordonia). Benny’s approach reflected the ideology of Hakibbutz Hame’uhad, which

aspired to unite the separate kibbutz movements under its leadership. But the other kibbutz

movements opposed this move and soon after instructed their members to leave Klosova

and establish their own separate kibbutzim, where they trained members for their

movements in Palestine.82 Hakhsharah was thus split between the various kibbutz

movements in Palestine, reflecting the latter’s control over Hehalutz.

Living conditions

According to all accounts, living conditions in Klosova were terrible. The most candid and

detailed descriptions are found in letters and diaries. In early winter 1927, for example, the

kibbutz is described as follows: “One house, three rooms with a kitchen . . . inside are 50

people . . . the three rooms, one of which is a dining room, containing up to 18 beds

packed tightly together, and there is nowhere to sleep – people have to sleep two to a bed,

besides sleeping on the benches, tables, and inner doors, which are taken off at night and

put back on their hinges during the day.”83 People often slept on tables crosswise, with

their legs half hanging in the air. Other accounts describe people sleeping on the floor, in

the attic, the oven, and even in the narrow gap between a big closet and the ceiling.84

In these conditions, there were various sleeping arrangements, and each had its own

terminology. The bare wooden boards called “nares” (plank cots) had no mattresses.

The Yiddish word “kanteven” described the cramped conditions. It was impossible to

sleep on one’s back. When entering a bed one would say “makh a kant” (literally “make an

edge”) to the person already there, who would turn on his side to make room for another

person, sometimes for two or even three more on the edge of the iron bed frame. The term

was probably taken from the sawmills where the pioneers worked. It referred to turning a

wooden board onto its narrow side.85 If anyone wanted to turn over at night, his or her bed

partners had to follow suit. Bunk beds that were built were called “internationals” after the

socialist organization. If socialism meant sharing, nothing symbolized hakhsharah’s

extreme collectivism more than the total lack of privacy, even while asleep. When a triple

bunk bed was built, it was ironically termed, “the Third International.”86 Sometimes even

this three-tiered arrangement was not sufficient and people had to sleep in shifts. A tiny

room could fit two “internationals,” accommodating at least two people on each bunk for a

minimum total of eight. A bigger room could accommodate dozens.

Together with the collective clothing storehouse, unsurprisingly called “the

commune,” the bunk beds constituted a crude and radical socialism. Sharing in Klosova

was more extreme than in other kibbutzim. In the first years, even sleeping places were not

permanent; everyone slept wherever they wanted, and early sleepers enjoyed better spots.

Every morning, you had to find work clothes and shoes, since someone else had taken what

you had worn the day before. People shared even underwear and handkerchiefs. To some

this was real sharing, to others, plain anarchy and a distortion of communal living.87 When

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living arrangements were regularized, people had regular sleeping partners, called

“naparniks” (Russian for work mate). Fights would often break out at night: “turn over!”

“stop moving!” “make room!” If the “match” was no good, couples switched.88

People would not bathe regularly after work, whether for lack of facilities or because

of exhaustion, laziness, or the cold, and hygiene was deplorable. The air in the rooms

would be extremely dense, foul-smelling, and unsanitary. “If you threw an axe in the air it

would stay hanging,” joked one pioneer.89 In a Polish winter without heating, the thick air

provided some comfort. But lack of hygiene had grave consequences.

The crowded living conditions formed extreme intimacy between inexperienced male

and female members, most of whom had been brought up in a traditional environment

imbued with conservative values of sexual modesty and purity. Free interaction with the

other sex, away from parental supervision, was an exciting new adventure. Many love

affairs blossomed, though heartbreak was just as common. A girlfriend was called “a

problem” in hakhsharah jargon. A girl who married a pioneer in order to be added to his

certificate was termed “fiktsie” (fiction), and a true couple, “a real fiction.” Humor could

only veil common tensions, not solve them. Sexual intimacy remained a serious, unsolved

problem, given the difficult living arrangements.90

The silence of the sources regarding sexual intimacy in hakhsharah poses a serious

obstacle. It is easier to examine stereotypes of gender roles than it is to understand the

actual social reality in Klosova and its like.91 Censorship and self-censorship in the

sources reflect the contemporary attitude to sex as a taboo subject. When speakers and

writers addressed the relations between the sexes in protocols or private letters they used

codes, only hinting at a problem, assuming that the reader or listener would understand.

Even diaries and autobiographies ignored the matter altogether or used a code. The

common terms were “the girl’s problem” and “the sexual relations problem.” These vague

terms could refer both to social relations between the sexes and to actual sexual relations.

We can gather from personal accounts that men and women sometimes shared rooms, but

it is unclear if this was standard practice or the exception. It is even harder to understand

whether men and women shared beds. Members were not used to living and sleeping with the

other sex. In hakhsharah they were exposed to unfamiliar degrees of intimacy, which created

tension. We know that pregnancies did occur in kibbutzim and that abortions took place, but

there is no informationonhowmany therewere.Thematterwas handledwith secrecy.Wealso

know that some pioneers professed free love. The movement’s leadership opposed this

tendency and tried to limit sexual relations by banning them altogether during the years of

rapid growth in the 1930s. It is hard to tell if this ban was observed. Sexual education was

unavailable, andmemberswereoften ignorant about sexualmatters.Given the sources’ silence

on these matters, we can only discern that this was a burning daily issue that preoccupied the

inexperienced youth in kibbutzim. One envoy expressed the opinion that “a third of members

in kibbutzim become ill due to the sexual tension: [causing] hysteria and stress.”92

To some, the greatest hardship was the sleeping arrangements, others suffered most

from the hard labor, while yet others were repelled by the poor quality of the food,

unvarying, tasteless, hard on the stomach. The industrial-size pot used for cooking in

Klosova was called “the social basis,” another socialist term.93 Without proper facilities,

supplies, and experience, the cooks could offer little.Whenmoney ran out, which was often

the case, nutrition was reduced to black bread, chicory, and rationed sugar, all in minimal

portions. One emissary from a kibbutz in Palestine, who entered incognito, described

lunchtime at Klosova and the spirit of extreme sharing. Though he was a total stranger he

was instantly welcomed, even when there were already some 300 members in the kibbutz,

both in the main house and in rooms rented in the village.

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Klosova . . . lives in a rhythm and a cycle of shifts, in the day and at night, at work, in thedining room, in forks and spoons, in beds and shoes. The dining room is too small to fiteveryone . . . my host found a narrow space by the table. What is the table like? Crumbs,bread crumbs to wipe the spoon or fork that has just been in the mouth of the comrade who hasleft the table. And the meal? A slice of white crumbling bread, and dough soup . . . withoutany flavor. Watery soup. I was thirsty, but resolved to withstand the trial of this meal with allits flavors. I cleaned the spoon of my predecessor from leftover food with a piece of bread. Myhost asked: “Can you eat that?”94

Despite the rationing of supplies the income was insufficient and the economic

condition of the kibbutzim was persistently bad. The Polish economy was undeveloped,

and there was an economic crisis throughout most of the 1920s and 1930s, with high

unemployment, increasing competition, and wage cuts. Kibbutz members, unprofessional

and inexperienced, could only obtain low-paying jobs, often on a daily basis without

regular employment. The turnover of members was high, with new members who had to

adjust to the hard work constantly reducing the average income. Only in times of abundant

work could pioneers eat their fill.

The youth had little experience in independent living and did not know how to take

care of themselves or carry out daily practical tasks like cooking, cleaning, and laundry.

Moreover, efficient communal life required experience and guidance, but there was no one

to instruct these young men and women during the daily dilemmas of communal living,

and many organizational, economic, and social mistakes were made. Worse still, as

Shlomo Kantor confessed in his diary, some people had no interest in communal living.

Many came only in order to obtain a certificate; those who were not “converted” to kibbutz

life like Shlomo had to hide their real intentions.

In these living conditions, the second principle of hakhsharah, cultural training, was

easily forgotten. Even the study of Hebrew was neglected in most places. When Hebrew

speakers joined Klosova and wanted to introduce the language, Benny opposed, saying

people would learn it when they arrived in the Land of Israel.95 The situation in most other

kibbutzim was similar. Envoys and leaders from Palestine repeatedly stressed the

importance of Hebrew to help immigrants feel at home in Palestine and to socially integrate,

but it seems that the need to keep people in the kibbutz and ensure social solidarity was

greater, and Yiddish became the principal language of hakhsharah. Kibbutz life came to

replace Hebrew as the second principle of hakhsharah.

The hard physical labor with poor nutrition, inadequate clothing, insufficient sleep,

cold winters, and very poor hygiene led to frequent illness. The most common ailments

were skin infections contracted from beds and clothes (scabies), called “Egypt,” with

reference to the biblical plagues. This was yet another trial in the initiation into the kibbutz

– the willingness to enter an infected bed in order to emerge several days later as a new

member. There were more serious illnesses too, from fever to rheumatism or appendicitis,

requiring expensive life-saving surgery. It was common for 30–40% of members to be

sick at any given time.96 Given that total commitment to the kibbutz was required, they

were not sent home for treatment. They were exempt from work, but the kibbutz could not

afford effective treatment and medications other than rest and a somewhat better diet. This

practice created a vicious circle, with the poor conditions making many sick, who in turn

added to the burden of an already low income, further diminishing the budget for food,

clothes, and heating. Considering the number of sick people, in addition to the cooks and

cleaners (usually girls) working inside the kibbutz, the secretariat, and the unemployed,

the kibbutz struggled to keep wage-earners at 50% of the membership. This made the

social relations inside the group even more difficult since around half the members were

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being supported by those who worked outside the kibbutz. It is remarkable that people

were willing to work at all.

How did people bear these harsh conditions for months or years? Hope for aliyah was

the main source of strength. Paradoxically, the suffering brought people closer. They were

all in it together. At night, before sleep on a flat board or on the edge of a bed in a cold,

damp room, dancing would become ecstatic. One visitor marked that “even experienced

Hasidim don’t have such enthusiasm.”97 But there were times of despair too, and many left

hakhsharah disappointed. Memoirs of Klosoviaks tend to diminish the impact of

difficulties in hindsight and resolve them with justifications such as: we didn’t care much,

we were young, enthusiastic, and hoping for aliyah; collective life united us like a family;

we somehow got used to it, or managed to get through it. Popular Yiddish songs, sung by

hundreds of pioneers, hundreds of times, provide a better reflection of daily feelings.

The Klosova hymn, which was written by Abraham Goberman, an activist at Hehalutz

headquarters, and was enthusiastically adopted by the pioneers, encapsulated the ideology

of hakhsharah. Goberman wrote it during a visit in 1928, seeking to convey the proletarian

consciousness expressed by members working in the quarry. Set to the melody of a

Russian anarchist hymn, it defined the place as “no man’s land”:98

We have here no one, we need here nothing

We tore ourselves apart from the near and the far,

Ripped out our hearts, spread out our bodies –

A lawless gang of sung-out buddies

We laugh at suffering, we smile at troubles

We hear answers resounding from the cliffs of graniteThe present belongs to us, we are forging tomorrow

Our veins beat with boiling blood. . . .

The song continues to describe the pounding of the hammers, and concludes: “We are

pioneers of the Klosova kibbutz. We build life out of labor’s song.”

Other popular songs expressed different feelings of daily hardship and even despair,

like this one: “Late at night, I lie on the “nare” [wooden board], I lay down my tired bones,

my hope awakes in my heart, to be in [the Land of] Israel soon.” The author continues by

describing how his fingers bleed in the quarry, other comrades are broken, and they want to

be sent to another easier kibbutz. The regional committee of Hehalutz and Betty [Batya

Bendersky] write that things will be better, when instead they become worse every day.

Everything is the committee’s fault, the author accused, many have fallen ill. The

committee doesn’t provide good food. Instead they send 10 girls, but for work they are no

good.99 Another song laments, “Why did we come here? So that drops of death-sweat will

drip from us?” The author sadly describes life without a pillow or a bed, without even a

penny for a cigarette. Another song is written like a bitter-sweet dialogue between mother

and daughter, ironically describing the “wonderful” experiences of hakhsharah, including

again hard work, poor food, and inadequate sleep with two male pioneers. Yet another

expresses the deep longing for aliyah.100 These grave or humorous expressions of sorrow,

pain, and hope reveal everyday feelings, often contrary to the official ideology of Klosova.

The house

In Klosova, the farm house purchased for the kibbutz served as the main home, where

social and organizational life was centered. Its sparsely decorated living room served as a

dining room, assembly hall, dancing arena, and so forth. As shown on a photo of the living

room (Figure 1), it was adorned with a red banner, a clear socialist symbol, embroidered

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with a golden inscription in Hebrew which became the Klosova motto: “The doctrine of

Hebrew pioneering is cruel in its pragmatism and wonderful in its essence.”101 The banner

was prepared for the inauguration of the kibbutz’s house in early 1927, and although it was

also written by the author of the hymn (Goberman), it was attributed to the Hebrew writer

Yosef Haim Brenner, who became one of the political symbols of the Histadrut, the Ahdut

Ha’avodah Party, and Hakibbutz Hame’uhad after his assassination by Arabs in 1921.102

His figure symbolized the deep emotional rebellion of Jewish youth against the despairing

conditions of east European Jewry, and a quest for their remedy. The Klosova pioneers

who rejected the lifestyle of the surrounding Jewish society identified with this sentiment.

Above the banner hung two portraits. One is not clearly seen on this photo, but the other

is a drawing of Trumpeldor, easily identified by his uniform. The famous national martyr,

one of the founders of Hehalutz, was the main symbol of the movement.103 With the

decision tomake Klosova the regional kibbutz of Volhynia, it was named after Trumpeldor,

probably in 1926.104 This identification was contested by Betar, the Revisionist youth

movement established in the mid-1920s, which was also named after Trumpeldor and

championed his military legacy, which was neglected by Hehalutz. Klosova thus used three

simple symbols: a red banner, Hebrew letters, and the national martyr who died in

Palestine. Taken together, they constitute the fundaments of Socialist Zionism, advocating

a Jewish nation-state in Palestine, based on the Hebrew language and social justice.

The verbal culture of the kibbutz was more developed. Several key expressions have

already been mentioned. To these we can add the name of the new house of the kibbutz,

Figure 1. Kibbutz members in the Klosova dining room. Behind them is the red banner with theKlosova motto and a portrait of Trumpeldor to the right. Photo probably taken in 1932. Photographerunknown. Courtesy of the Ghetto Fighters’ House Archive, Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta’ot.

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which was simply called “kibbutz.” Once the kibbutz grew and rooms were rented in other

village houses to sleep its members, they were termed “moshav” (cooperative village),

“small kvutzah” (group), and “workers’ neighborhood.”105 The names were taken from the

terminology of the labor movement in the Yishuv, to which Hehalutz was connected.

Other Hebrew names for rooms were taken from the geography of the Land of Israel, like

the Hula (lake) or Negev (desert), reflecting the pioneers’ aspiration to go to Palestine.106

The sanctification of suffering

The hardships of kibbutz life in the diaspora can be attributed to three internal factors, in

addition to the objective conditions described here.Onewas incompetence.Members lacked

required skills like cooking, fiscal management, negotiating with suppliers etc. The second

was negligence. Many members were unwilling to take care of collective responsibilities,

whether because they did not see them as their duty or for social reasons. The third factor can

be called “intentional negligence.” Because poverty and suffering became so strongly

identified with the image of the pioneer, many young pioneers “cultivated” them.

Envoys to Hehalutz repeatedly called for serious improvements in Polish kibbutzim.

Some suggested keeping a kibbutz member from Palestine permanently in Klosova to

teach the young members about proper kibbutz life. Such a person would be able to

improve technical elements, such as living arrangements and economic efficiency, and

correct misperceptions of pioneering.107 Some of the envoys who visited the kibbutzim

tried to explain that unnecessary suffering weakened pioneers before their true mission in

Palestine, and efforts were made to improve standards. Other envoys did not address the

practical aspects of daily life and focused on ideology and the organizational aspects of the

movement. One envoy, for example, who stayed in Klosova for a while in 1930,

introduced “revolutionary” innovations. He explained that it was not necessary to suffer,

that suffering did not prepare one for Palestine. On the contrary, better conditions were

more conducive to creating a good pioneer. One girl was surprised to hear that things did

not need to be so bad in the kibbutz, that they needed to improve. She learned that “the

idealization of hardship does not educate to pioneering and kibbutz life in the Land of

Israel . . . the worker deserves all that is good in life.” This envoy completely changed

her understanding.108

But envoys could not stay in Klosova on a regular basis. Members of Hehalutz

headquarters and envoys were too few and could only visit kibbutzim sporadically. Their

visits could not instill long-lasting changes. The high turnover of people and the departure

of experienced members to Palestine required constant training of new arrivals. Only in

the smaller organizations, like the separate kibbutzim of the various youth movements,

could this be achieved to a certain extent. In the general movement, hakhsharah remained

a fairly tormenting experience to varying degrees in different places and reflected a rather

juvenile understanding of pioneering.

Hakhsharah’s preparation for kibbutz life also raised concerns. It presented distorted

notions about the kibbutz in Palestine. When the first pioneers of Klosova arrived in

kibbutzim in Palestine in 1929, they were almost as shocked as when they had come to

Klosova. Sugar was not rationed, the dining room was in a separate building, and every

pioneer had his/her own bed. It was their first night’s sleep alone in years. The shift to

agricultural work was also difficult. It was considered too easy by the Klosoviaks. Many

had to learn Hebrew from scratch.109 Kibbutz life in Palestine was quite different from

what they were accustomed to in Poland. This discrepancy raised the question whether

Klosova was fulfilling its promise.

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Polish pioneers sanctified the harsh reality that was created in the kibbutzim. They

created a ritual of self-mortification, seeking to toughen the individual. Enduring the hard

work and maintaining the kibbutz consumed all their energy. Perseverance in hakhsharah

was the main goal. While this fact is understandable in light of conditions described here,

it had grave repercussions. The challenges of kibbutz life in Poland were tremendous. The

radical youth did its best to comply. They succeeded in creating kibbutzim, but the results

were seriously wanting, especially when Hehalutz began to grow again.

The diaspora kibbutz as a mass movement

In the spring of 1932, following improved economic conditions in Palestine, large-scale

aliyahbegan.During two and a half years, the peak years of the FifthAliyah, tens of thousands

of Jews, mainly from Poland and Nazi Germany, came to settle in Palestine, including

thousands of pioneers. A new wave of Zionist enthusiasm of unprecedented scale erupted in

Poland.Hundredsof thousands of Jews seekingaliyah joinedZionist organizations,more than

the number of Jews in Palestine at the time.110 The economic crisis of 1929 was not over.

Together with increasing anti-Semitism, it drove many unemployed and impoverished Jews

to leave Poland. The German-Jewish immigration brought considerable capital to Palestine,

and large investments were made in construction, agriculture, and industry. Work was

abundant, and salaries were at least five to ten times higher than in Poland.111

Hehalutz became the hope of many youth in Poland. It quickly grew from about 10,000

to over 40,000 members (between 1931 and 1933). Hakhsharah grew even more rapidly

from 1,000 to around 8,000 members in over 200 kibbutzim in Hehalutz alone, reaching its

largest size ever. Kibbutzim were established in nearly every Jewish small town and city.

The Klosova section alone grew from 300 members in 11 kibbutzim (companies) to about

1,500 members in 43 kibbutzim.112 Numbers remained stable for two years, and began to

shrink with the decline of aliyah at the end of 1935.

Hehalutz became a mass movement, well known among the entire Jewish public, and

the kibbutz gained prominence. The flexible kibbutz network managed to absorb the new

members and expand. The most common work was now chopping wood for domestic

use for Jewish families, especially in winter, as electricity was still rare in many places in

Poland. The axe became the symbol of the pioneer. Girls found work primarily as

housemaids with Jewish families. Work as water carriers, porters, unskilled day laborers,

as well as traditional Jewish trades like tailoring and carpentry were also common, along

with occasional factory work.

The shift from the margins to the center of Jewish life challenged the radical ethos that

had been created in Klosova. How did hakhsharah meet this challenge? Some local groups

managed to establish livable kibbutzim without any guidance.113 Others existed in terrible

conditions, worse than those depicted above, especially in smaller towns and in the

winter.114 The principles of the radical group required training, a deep commitment, and a

strong social base. Resilience was needed to endure hakhsharah and keep its spirit alive,

once initial enthusiasm faded. Without them, the kibbutz became a very grim place.

The kibbutz’s social makeup and atmosphere were therefore critical. In Jedrzejow for

example, not far from Kielce, a local company was established. Members found good jobs

and had free firewood, but no one bothered to heat the apartment. Apathy ruled – “why

should [I] do it and not someone else?”115 Many of the new members were driven to

Palestine by distress rather than idealism. They had no interest in kibbutz life and joined

hakhsharah only as a means to obtain a certificate to Palestine. They were called

“certificate pioneers” or “conjuncture pioneers.”

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In September 1933, Berl Katznelson, one of the main leaders of the labor movement in

Palestine, arrived in Poland to examine the huge movement that had sprung up practically

overnight. Socialist Zionism had become the largest Zionist camp in Poland, leading to a

landslide victory in the elections to the 18th Zionist Congress held in Prague the month

before, to a large extent thanks to Hehalutz. The movement that was affiliated with the

Socialist-Zionist camp in Palestine was barely known to the Yishuv and the leaders of the

Histadrut. Only the few envoys sent to Poland were closely acquainted with what was

going on. Katznelson was sent to get a firsthand impression of the largest reservoir of

members for the Histadrut and Mapai. After the congress ended, he toured Poland for a

month, learning about Hehalutz, the kibbutzim, and the state of Jewish life in general.116

Katznelson was shaken by the tragic decline of Jewish life in eastern Europe and the

problems of the pioneer movement. He described the “total destruction of the Jewish way

of life.” The collapse of Jewish social and educational institutions created “a process of

complete assimilation . . . terrible ignorance and spiritual impoverishment.” He witnessed

the hopeless poverty that tens of thousands of Jews were reduced to, living in inhuman

conditions of hunger and filth. Orthodox families could not afford any Jewish education

for their many children, who were being deprived of their national Jewish heritage. He

wondered what would become of them in a few years as citizens of nation-states that did

not want them.117 “Hehalutz is an inseparable part of Jewry as it is today. This is postwar

Jewish youth, raised in the economic and spiritual decline of Jewish life in the diaspora,”

observed Katznelson.118 He toured the movement across Poland, in Warsaw, Łodz,

Vilnius, Lutsk, and the smaller towns around them. Katznelson visited especially the

kibbutzim, the future members of his movement in Palestine. He came incognito, seeking

direct contact with ordinary members, asking them about the kibbutz and their life in it.119

As early as 1927 Katznelson had warned against the new tendency to identify Hehalutz

with kibbutz life. But in the six years that had passed since then nothing had been done to

prevent this development. Envoys sent by the Histadrut to Poland were primarily activists

of kibbutz movements in Palestine who shaped Hehalutz according to their own

understanding. By 1933, Hehalutz was firmly linked to kibbutz life, and the pioneer

movement outside it followed suit. Katznelson was alarmed by the nature of the mass

movement that had emerged in hakhsharah. The dozens of new kibbutzim, without any

experience of communal living and physical labor or any guidance, had created a crude

way of life: poor sanitary conditions, poverty, ignorance, crowdedness, and sickness.

Without the unique spirit fostered in Klosova by devoted members, the magic was gone

and only the suffering remained. People became seriously weakened and ill after only a

few months in hakhsharah. They were wearing rags, living in degrading conditions, not

learning Hebrew. Was this preparing them for Palestine? Most of all Katznelson disliked

the crude spirit he found in the kibbutzim. The Klosova motto, falsely attributed to

Brenner, one of Katznelson’s most admired Hebrew writers, seemed to justify the cruel

reality in hakhsharah and praise it. To Katznelson, the movement that carried the banner

of Socialist Zionism in Poland (and elsewhere) distorted its values. Katznelson and his

colleagues, founders and leaders of the workers’ camp, aspired to elevate Jewish workers,

materially and spiritually. The kibbutzim he saw in Poland too often did the opposite.

Katznelson opposed the imposition of kibbutz ideology on members. In a long meeting

with leaders of Hehalutz in Poland he warned them not to foster fanaticism. Katznelson did

not deny the need to maintain kibbutzim in the diaspora altogether, but he claimed that in

Palestine people should join a kibbutz out of free will. The distribution of certificates

according to commitment to the kibbutz in Palestine created hypocrisy. Forcing people to

feign such commitment was not going to make good pioneers. “I was always worried,”

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he said, “that our work would be built on a lie. I mean a lack of honesty and truth in human

relations.” Katznelson was referring to the fact that among the new pioneers there were

people who had pledged their allegiance to kibbutz life before their aliyah, but turned out

to have deceived their friends and the movement. “Hypocrisy, hiding the face of fear of an

individual or public opinion – these are outrageous moral flaws. Do we want to raise

frauds for the Land of Israel?”120 But his warnings had no impact. The envoys and local

activists represented the perspectives and interests of the three kibbutz movements in

Palestine, which by now fully controlled Hehalutz and had no intention of giving it

up. They were afraid that Katznelson’s intervention on behalf of the Histadrut and Mapai

would diminish their influence. The three kibbutz movements and their representatives

were absorbed in internal power struggles in Hehalutz, disguised in ideological rhetoric.

Hehalutz was completely divided from within. Each movement wanted Katznelson on its

side. Hakibbutz Hame’uhad, which was the most dominant movement and controlled

Hehalutz on behalf of the Histadrut, feared Katznelson’s intervention the most.

Katznelson had been aware of the negative aspects of Hehalutz’s control by kibbutz

members from Palestine before his arrival in Poland. As one envoy of Mapai, Ze’ev

Scherf, described the situation to him: “[Envoys] of the kibbutz here (and probably in

Palestine as well) have a unique talent: either they pull a person until he becomes

completely one of them or they push him in the other direction. They do not know how to

maintain good relations with those who are not entirely theirs.” Though Scherf supported

the kibbutz movement, he warned that the party would suffer significant losses if it did not

regain its direct control over Hehalutz and the youth organizations.121

The new immigration wave revealed the problematic aspects of the kibbutzim’s

control of Hehalutz. The enforcement of kibbutz life in Hehalutz resulted in large

defections in Palestine. Most of the pioneers who came from Poland during the peak years

of the Fifth Aliyah did not remain on kibbutzim. Some left after a few months, some after

days. Others never even went to a kibbutz and stayed in Tel Aviv to work and help their

families in Poland.122 Graduates of youth movements were more inclined to stay in

kibbutzim than those who had no such background, but many of their members also left.123

Back in Palestine, Katznelson criticized Hehalutz headquarters in the harshest terms.

On the day of his arrival he immediately reported his impressions to the party center. He

described a meeting he had attended at Hehalutz headquarters as an incarnation of the

squabbles of competing Jewish grocers in the shtetl, engaged in futile arguments over petty

considerations.124 To him these were not leaders of the “Hebrew revolution,” not “new

men and women” leading the nation’s revival, but embodiments of the nation’s impotency

and decline. Katznelson ironically remarked that he had been told that the meeting was a

relatively calm one, implying that he knew that they had been cautious in his presence. This

devastating criticism of Hehalutz headquarters in Poland did not come from an opponent

but from one of the two main leaders of the labor movement (alongside Ben-Gurion).

Katznelson set out to change the situation. He wanted to establish a Youth Center in

the Histadrut and another one in the party, which would be responsible for educational and

cultural work both in Palestine and the diaspora. They would initiate large-scale activity,

train activists, and publish materials. They would guide the envoys and supervise them,

thus remedying Mapai and the Histadrut’s long neglect.125 By taking the lead, the new

centers would restore the control of the central leadership of the Histadrut and the party

over Hehalutz, and diminish the excessive influence of the kibbutzim. The executives of

Mapai and the Histadrut passed resolutions that approved the foundation of the new

centers, but they were too weak to implement them. They could not recruit enough

activists who would be devoted to this kind of educational work and spend long periods

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abroad. The only organization inside the Histadrut that could supply members was

Hakibbutz Hame’uhad.126 It had highly committed members, and the communal

infrastructure provided them with economic and social support that enabled long trips. The

party and the Histadrut could not do the same for their members. Katznelson knew that his

plan depended on Hakibbutz Hame’uhad. Four days after his return he set out to meet its

leadership to see if he could gain their cooperation.

Hakibbutz Hame’uhad and its envoys were aware of the many flaws in Hehalutz and

hakhsharah, and of their further deterioration caused by their rapid growth. Some

envoys expressed doubts about the contribution of kibbutz life abroad in its present

form.127 The leadership discussed the grave state of affairs, seeking to improve the

organization of kibbutzim in Poland. But they were not willing to give up their control,

even though they could not effectively lead Hehalutz. In Poland alone hakhsharah was

much larger than their kibbutz movement, not to mention the entire Hehalutz. If they left

Hehalutz there would be no one else to lead it. In the 1930s local activists were

increasingly rare, and those who did take up leadership roles emigrated to Palestine

shortly thereafter. Hehalutz confronted Hakibbutz Hame’uhad with both a huge

challenge and a huge opportunity.

The leader of Hakibbutz Hame’uhad, Yitzhak Tabenkin, had also just returned from

Poland and shared most of Katznelson’s criticism on Hehalutz. Everywhere in Poland he

had heard complaints about internal dictatorship. Kibbutz secretaries were called

“dictators” for their excessive power. Members feared them and their aides, who were

called “kanareks” (canaries, the name for informers of the Polish secret police). New

members were frowned upon and called “Yampam,” (meaning beggars), signaling them as

outsiders, dependants and a nuisance begging for alms.128 Tabenkin offered no real

solution other than to demand “more pioneering,” greater efforts, and more envoys. They

had to help Hehalutz; the kibbutz depended on this.129

The meeting between Katznelson and the leadership of Hakibbutz Hame’uhad took

place in the workers’ commune near Kfar Saba. This was the first serious discussion about

the activity of envoys in the diaspora. All the experienced activists of the kibbutz

participated. The records of this two-day meeting provide a fascinating detailed account of

Hehalutz and the diverse attitudes to the movement in the diaspora.

Katznelson presented his plan for the Youth Center and asked for their sincere

cooperation. Some of the kibbutz activists agreed to Katznelson’s criticism of Hehalutz

and shared his doubts regarding the current approach. Others rejected it outright. Gershon

Ostrovsky expressed the views of the more extreme kibbutz activists, attacking the

Histadrut’s (i.e. Katznelson’s) failure to act in many fields and claimed that the only path

to Socialist Zionism was that of Hakibbutz Hame’uhad. He warned that eliminating their

monopoly over Hehalutz would turn it into a weak organization like the Histadrut, devoid

of pioneering, “a body without a soul.” Ostrovsky explained the vision of Hakibbutz

Hame’uhad: “its essence and raison d’etre is the belief that everyone can live on a kibbutz,

that everyone should live in a commune, that the commune is possible and necessary for

all workers in the Land of Israel.”130

The utopian vision of a general commune of workers had been abandoned by leaders of

the Histadrut nearly ten years earlier, when they realized that the kibbutz did not suit most

workers. Only small and highly motivated groups of workers would live in communes.

If the Histadrut wanted to embrace every worker it had to tolerate various ways of life,

including that of the majority of workers who lived in cities. Hakibbutz Hame’uhad clung

to the utopian vision, which lay behind its desire to lead Hehalutz and be involved in

public affairs outside the kibbutz. It was their duty, their calling. They knew that many

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members of Hehalutz did not want to join a kibbutz in Palestine, but by taking care of the

entire movement they hoped to attract more members to their revolutionary vision.

Otherwise, said Ostrovsky, he and the others would consider organizing only those who

suited them, implying there would be no one left to organize the rest of themovement, as the

Histadrut had thus far been unable to do so. “There is no solution to Zionism outside

pioneering [i.e. the kibbutz],” he concluded. “Everybodymust be a pioneer, every Jewhas to

be a pioneer.” The kibbutz movement should not be closed within itself, but lead the masses

who were joining it. “Demand more of ourselves!”131 he concluded. Benny Marshak, who

also attended the meeting, expressed similar views.132 Members of Hakibbutz Hame’uhad

were proud of opening the kibbutz to anyone who cared to join, and rightly so. The other

kibbutz movements did not do the same. But the members of Hakibbutz Hame’uhad also

tended to confuse the interests of their movement with those of the entire people or the

Zionist movement. They were deaf to Katznelson’s criticism.

Katznelson argued that the vision should be tested according to actual achievements.

He knew that Hakibbutz Hame’uhad was making great efforts, but if only 35% of the last

group of Polish pioneers knew Hebrew, something was fundamentally wrong. He

criticized the approach of “trying harder,” and called for a change in the nature of work.

The envoys should abandon power struggles with other kibbutz movements in Hehalutz

and cease the constant ideological discussions about the kibbutz. They should instead

concentrate on the praxis of kibbutz life and on improving hakhsharah. “Simple but

crucial things determine the outlook of the generation more than any ideological or

theoretical framework,” argued Katznelson. The movement’s aim was to increase the

standard of living, of cleanliness, of order, not to decrease them. The bad conditions of

hakhsharah cultivated “pseudo-pioneering” and made people hate the kibbutz and leave it

in Palestine. “It is not a disaster if some come here knowing they will be [ordinary]

workers. But it is a disaster if the education to kibbutz life raises liars and hypocrites.”

He urged clearing the atmosphere of fear and deception. This would be done only by

organizing inside the kibbutzim cells that would be openly affiliated with Hakibbutz

Hame’uhad and the moshavim. Only when these groups and the people with no specific

affiliation would be equally treated would people stop pretending.133

The main confrontation in the meeting was between Katznelson and Tabenkin.

Although they were relatives and close friends, they were growing increasingly apart.

They had met beforehand, and Tabenkin agreed to help the new center. Tabenkin tried to

introduce Katznelson to younger activists in the kibbutz who did not know him and were

hostile to his intervention. But in the meeting Tabenkin challenged Katznelson’s vision

and leadership. He rejected Katznelson’s claim to represent the general interests of the

Histadrut and his attitude to Hakibbutz Hame’uhad as just one of its groups. Tabenkin

claimed they had competing visions of the Histadrut, and presented his own, which

reflected the growing tensions between the Histadrut, the party and the kibbutz

movement, and between Hakibbutz Hame’uhad’s increasing desire for independence, on

the one hand, and its desire to lead on the other hand. He emphasized that the problems

of Hehalutz reflected the difficulties faced by every Zionist organization when dealing

with mass membership. He told his associates and followers in the kibbutz that the

difficulties in Hehalutz should be seriously addressed because they affected them

directly. Tabenkin did not overlook the problems Katznelson referred to. He explained

that because the limited number of certificates to Palestine were now in great demand,

selection was inevitable. If the Histadrut demanded the right to determine who would

receive a certificate, preferring young people or those who had learned Hebrew, the

kibbutz also had the right to choose people who wished to join it. Tabenkin knew this

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would make people hate the kibbutz, but he was willing to pay the price. If young people

and Hebrew speakers served the Zionist project better, so did kibbutz members, who

were more willing than others to fulfill active roles for the sake of the entire nation.

Ordinary workers in the Histadrut were not inclined to do so, they sought their own

comfort. He warned that it was in the Histadrut’s interest to maintain the status quo since

if Hakibbutz Hame’uhad prepared its own people separately, there would be no one to

organize potential immigrants to the Histadrut and the party. “How would [the

Histadrut] operate among tens of thousands?” asked Tabenkin, insisting that the kibbutz

was the true representative of the Histadrut, “There is no contradiction between

Hehalutz, the kibbutz, and the party, nor can there be.”134

But the conflict between the leadership ofHakibbutzHame’uhad andMapai continued on

this and other matters. Tabenkin’s assertionwas an ideological statement, not a description of

reality. He did agree to support the new Youth Center. At the same time, Hakibbutz

Hame’uhad continued to foster independent ties with youth organizations in Palestine and

established its ownYouthCenter.135 It is hard to tell whatwould have happened ifKatznelson

had implemented his proposals. If successful, they could have entirely changed Hehalutz and

hakhsharah by revoking the exclusive status of the kibbutz, but they were never tested.

Hakibbutz Hame’uhad did not relinquish its power. Kibbutz leaders rightly argued that the

party and the Histadrut were too weak to create an alternative. Eighteen months after

Katznelson’s visit, Hehalutz remained unchanged, with no envoys apart from members of

HakibbutzHame’uhad.AsZe’evScherf bitterly remarked, “In all the countrieswe are in deep

trouble; ifwe donot get envoys fromPalestinewewill notmake it.Andwewill not get envoys

because the kibbutz is not interested in this and Mapai so far contents itself merely with very

serious discussions of the problem.”136 By the end of the second year Katznelson concluded

that the Youth Center was a failure and disbanded it. Without the support of Hakibbutz

Hame’uhad it did not materialize. Hakibbutz Hame’uhad effectively functioned as the

center,137 and the Histadrut had to rely on it. Hakibbutz Hame’uhad continued to represent

theHistadrut inHehalutz until the outbreak ofWorldWar II. It was onlywith the beginning of

the political split between Hakibbutz Hame’uhad and Mapai in Palestine that Hakibbutz

Hame’uhad was removed from its dominant position in Hehalutz.138

In the meantime, so long as Zionism was popular, Polish Jewry’s criticism of the

kibbutzim remained marginal, confined mainly to ideological rivals, especially anti-

Zionists such as the Bund and Jewish communists. Once aliyah dwindled, criticism of the

permanent kibbutz gained momentum. In early 1936 a series of articles written by one of

the most popular and witty Jewish columnists B. Yeushzon (Son of Despair), harshly

criticized the hakhsharah kibbutzim.139 The articles were published in Haynt (Today), one

of the leading Jewish daily papers in Poland. which expressed pro-Zionist and mainstream

agendas. Yeushzon initially questioned the need for permanent kibbutzim, arguing that

thousands of young men and women were wasting their best years in terrible conditions

that damaged them physically and spiritually instead of training them for the Land of

Israel. The writer demanded that they be sent home to wait there for a certificate. After the

leaders of Hehalutz arrogantly dismissed his proposal, the tone of his criticism sharpened.

Mopping floors does not require years of hakhsharah, he claimed, and called the leaders

of Hehalutz demagogues. According to one testimony, these attacks had many secret

supporters inside the kibbutzim.140

With the decline of aliyah and the strengthening of the anti-Semitic right in Poland in

1936, public attention shifted from Zionism to internal affairs. Hehalutz and the kibbutzim

shrank more or less to the size they had been before the movement’s growth, and other

Jewish parties came to the fore until the outbreak of the war.

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Summary: A way for many, a way for a few?

This article has addressed only a small part of the kibbutz movements in the diaspora.

Kibbutzim were formed in other countries and periods, and by other Zionist organizations

and youth movements. Each had its unique characteristics and dilemmas. In Hehalutz in

Poland there were other important kibbutzim like the Grochov agricultural farm on the

outskirts of Warsaw, or the large urban kibbutz in Łodz, which offered different models

and symbols for the movement. There are other interesting aspects of Hehalutz that require

further study such as the tension between agricultural romanticism and proletarian

Marxism, or how Hehalutz tried to develop a proletarian ethos when most pioneers did not

have classic proletarian jobs in factories.

I have focused here on Klosova both because of its importance and because it illustrates

several key aspects of kibbutz life in the diaspora. The diaspora kibbutz was created during

the nadir of Zionism in Poland. It was shaped by a small group of very young women and

men in Klosova, who were guided by members of Hakibbutz Hame’uhad. Together they

transformed hakhsharah into an extension of the kibbutzmovement in Palestine. Isolated in

rural areas, they developed an extreme cult of communal living and exhausting labor. They

formed a radical group of believers, a nucleus of devoted activists in unfavorable conditions.

Their radical ethos proved its advantages during the 1930s, compared to the organizational

weakness of Polish Zionism. It also proved itself during World War II, when the pioneer

movements were an important part of the Jewish resistance and underground activity under

Nazi occupation, in ghettos and camps, untilmost of theirmembers perishedwith the Jewish

population. But this is a subject for another study.141

With the rapid expansion of hakhsharah, the radical ethos was caught in a tragic

paradox. The small group of radical activists in Hehalutz tried to lead a mass movement

and to shape it in their image. But Klosova’s model, which was imposed on the entire

movement, proved unfitting. The “spontaneous” kibbutzim that emerged during the peak

years, without training and guidance, were seriously flawed. The kibbutz was essentially

a small elitist vanguard whose zealotry and extremism were unsuited to large

movements, but the Histadrut and Mapai failed to offer alternatives to the radical model.

When thousands of youth joined hakhsharah, the situation became tragic. Several

thousands of certificates, now desired by hundreds of thousands, were distributed

according to political criteria. Hehalutz was caught in the turmoil and distress of Jewish

youth in Poland, unable to satisfy the desire of increasing numbers of young Jews to

emigrate from Poland.

Kibbutz members in Hehalutz can be roughly divided into two types. Many became

devoted to the ideal of the kibbutz and its values. Thousands joined kibbutzim in Palestine,

contributing to their dramatic increase in the 1930s. They played a key role in settlement and

defense during the critical years of 1936–49. The average member of Hehalutz, on the other

hand, viewed hakhsharah and kibbutz life as “opkumenish” (roughly translated as “hardship”

or “torture”) or as a “gzeyre” (a senseless or hostile decree). It needed to be endured in order to

leave Poland. Some made it to Palestine, became Histadrut members, and contributed to the

development of the Yishuv. The rest suffered in vain. When the large movement fell apart,

those who had joined in 1933–34 and still remained, clinging on to hope, spent five or six

years in the diaspora kibbutz. As one pioneer song humorously expressed their tragedy:

Lost are the years, we cannot steer [to Palestine].Broken are the bones, no one goes.Don’t be a pessimist –Be a Bundist!142

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Notes

1. Otiker, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 144–45. The largest kibbutz was Yagur in Palestine with 300members upon its unification with the Haifa workers’ commune in 1933; it had 448 members in1935. Tzur, Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me’uhad, 146.

2. During the 1930s the kibbutz movements in Palestine grew tenfold, mostly thanks to membersof pioneer movements in the diaspora who joined them. When aliyah stopped between1939 and 1945 their growth sharply declined to only 5–20% in five years. Sarid, Be-mivhanha-enut, 30.

3. The total number of Hehalutz members was much higher, around 90,000, including those notyet in kibbutzim. Together with affiliated youth movements like Hashomer Hatza’ir, numberspeaked well beyond 100,000. The movement was active in Poland, Galicia (separatelyorganized in Poland), Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria,Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Netherland, Belgium, France, England, Egypt, Syria, Iraq,South Africa, United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba. In 1935, 70%were in eastern Europe,due to a sharp increase in Germany, but usually it was even higher, with some 85% in 1933, forexample. Basok, ed., Sefer he-Halutz, 415.

4. See ibid., 417. In July 1933, Hehalutz in Poland and Galicia counted around 10,500 members inkibbutzim (7,000 in central and eastern Poland, and 3,500 in Galicia). In August 1935, numbersincreased to around 12,000. See He-Atid, no. 145, 20 August 1933; Duah merkaz he-Halutz;Leshchinsky, Ha-hakhsharah be-misparim; Basok, ed., Sefer he-Halutz, 415; Hahlatot ve-ta’arikhim, 97–104; Otiker, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 137–50.

5. In kibbutzim affiliated with the Histadrut, excluding children and parents. The largestmovement was Hakibbutz Hame’uhad, which grew from some 3,000 members to 4,300, a thirdof whom lived and worked in communes outside the movement’s settlements. Near, Ha-kibbutzveha-hevrah, 418–19.

6. Kibbutz research began in the 1940s–50s, using mainly social science methodologies focusingon the present, after the destruction of the movement in Europe. This tendency can be seen inhundreds of articles and books such as Rosner, “Social Research”; Fogiel-Bijaoui, Ba’ot mi-shtikah. Kibbutz researchers who address Hehalutz rely on secondary literature, and scholarshipremains divided between movements in the diaspora and in Israel. See for example, Near, TheKibbutz Movement, 97–112. An interesting exception is Diamond, “Kibbutz and Shtetl,”though it relies mainly on a psychological interpretation.

7. For ideological aspects see Oppenheim, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 1:553–661, 2:88–106, 233–437,507–14.

8. Ibid., 1:52–81.9. Joseph Trumpeldor (1880–1920) was a Zionist activist and the most decorated Jewish soldier

in tsarist Russia, who fought during the Russo-Japanese War. After his immigration toPalestine he worked in agriculture. During World War I he established the Zion Mule Corps, aJewish unit in the British army. He was killed while defending Tel-Hai against Arab attackersand became a national hero.

10. Tomaszewski “Between the Social and the National,” 55–70.11. See Marcus, Social and Politcal History, 389–410. According to Gurevich and Gertz, 41.5%

of aliyah between 1919 and 1942 was from Poland, with some 140,000 out of a total of around350,000 people. Gurevich and Gertz, Jewish Population, 59 (pagination according to theHebrew edition). Other estimates are higher (47.9% in 1918–38), but these numbers includesome Jewish refugees from the Ukraine and USSR, Barlas, “Ha-aliyah,” 432–34.

12. For example, Halamish, Be-merutz kaful, 9–26, 49–72.13. According to one estimate, some 50,000 Hehalutz members entered Palestine by 1939, nearly

half of them from Poland. Sarid, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 653.14. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 16–17. See also Kariv, Kehilat Sarny, 250–51.15. On the development of kibbutz terminology see Near, “Leshonot ha-shituf,” 123–46.

Hashomer Hatza’ir also adopted this term during the Third Aliyah, in reference to its forming ageneral organization based on economic cooperation, later known as Hakibbutz Ha’artziHashomer Hatza’ir, which was established in 1927.

16. There was also a village of Sarny, but in 1900–02, a town was established there, on at theintersection of two important rail lines. It grew rapidly to some 14,000 inhabitants, about halfof whom were Jewish. The town developed a strong Zionist tradition with a Hebrew school andZionist youth organizations. See Kariv, Sefer yizkor le-kehilat Sarny, 27–28.

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17. Baki, “Akhzariyut nifla’ah,” 4–6; Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 19–23. According to someaccounts the initiative came from the Sarny activists.

18. See photo from 23 November 1924, in Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, following p. 144.19. Ibid., 8, 20.20. Ibid., 20, 23.21. Ibid., 21–22, 25.22. Ibid., 28.23. State-owned monopolies, for example, which encompassed 20% of the economy, were closed

to Jews. During the 1930s the Jewish proletariat grew due to the impoverishment of the Jewishlower middle class (though these terms are problematic in the context of east European Jewry).Still, Jewish workers were employed primarily in the needle and food industries in smallworkshops owned by other Jewish workers, and not in large factories, even when they wereowned by Jews. In 1929, for example, only 6% of the workers in large Jewish-owned factorieswere Jews. Marcus, Social and Political History, 239.

24. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 22, 52.25. Ya’akov Rabinovitch, “Reshimot” (Notes), Ha-Po’el ha-Tza’ir, no. 27, 29 August 1919, 8–10.26. Mendelsohn, Zionism in Poland, 329–37.27. See Oppenheim, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 1:345.28. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 30–31.29. Ibid., 26, 29–30.30. Ibid., 38.31. Klosova was the largest center. Two were small communes, one in the Vilnius region

(Shaharia), and another in the Bialystok region (Tel-Hai). Together with Klosova they werelocated in the eastern provinces of Poland where Zionism and the pioneer movement weretraditionally stronger. The fourth was the Grochov farm for training pioneers on the outskirts ofWarsaw, owned by Hehalutz. Ibid., 107.

32. Israel Oppenheim, scholar of Hehalutz in Poland, described this change primarily as anideological one, but in my opinion the organizational aspects are the key to understanding thedevelopment of Hehalutz from that moment on. See, for example, Oppenheim, “Gilgulei de’otve-idiologiyah,” 234–94. Oppenheim’s descriptions of Marshak tend to rely on the popularimage of his unique personality by his contemporaries in Hehalutz and Hakibbutz Hame’uhad,which he joined after arriving in Palestine in 1929. His outstanding personality, hiswholehearted dedication and enthusiasm, were certainly important, but his main contributionwas organizational, political, and ideological. He reconstructed hakhsharah on modelsborrowed from the large Ein Harod kibbutz in Palestine.

33. See for example Erez, ed., Igrot David Ben-Gurion, 2:107, on the first envoy to Hehalutz in1922. The affiliation of Hehalutz with the Histadrut was finalized in 1926. Me’asef, 226.

34. Shva, Beni ratz, 7–15.35. Hakibbutz Hame’uhad was established only in 1927, and was active at the time under the name

Kibbutz Ein Harod, established in 1923 as a national organization of communes in agriculturalsettlements and communes of hired workers in cities and orchards. I use the term HakibbutzHame’uhad here for the sake of convenience. Among the seminar’s teachers was YitzhakGruenbaum (1879–1970), Polish Zionist leader, member of the Polish parliament (the Sejm),and later, the first interior minister of the State of Israel. See Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 30. Hisparticipation was part of his alignment with the Socialist-Zionist camp during those years.

36. Tabenkin was part of the first delegation sent by the Histadrut for prolonged work in Hehalutzin various countries at the end of 1925. The group was composed of 12 members from varioussocialist settlement movements in Palestine. Tabenkin and two other members of HakibbutzHame’uhad were sent to Poland for a year. Two other members were sent to Germany, asHakibbutz Hame’uhad initially concentrated its activity abroad in these countries. Tzur,Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me’uhad, 86–88.

37. Hakibbutz Hame’uhad’s activity in Poland coincided with initiatives to organize hakhsharah andaliyah in kibbutzim. The formation of kibbutzim for aliyah was initiated by Hehalutz Center inmid-1925. Itwas intended to encourage immigrants to join theHistadrut organizations inPalestine.For example, see memoirs of the center’s activist, another refugee from the USSR, who organizedthe first “aliyah kibbutz,” called Hakovesh, in Vilnius: Bankover, Sipurim, 18, 28–29. Seeprotocol of ameeting between the secretary of theWorldOrganization of Hehalutz andHakibbutzHame’uhad, 28 July 1925, Yad Tabenkin, Hakibbutz Hame’uhad Archives (hereafter YTA),

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1-2/1/1B.Oppenheimdescribes this as an internal ideological development inHehalutz but there isevidence showing otherwise. Oppenheim, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 1:306–70, esp. 347–58.

38. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 19–22, 25.39. Protocols of the Ein Harod Overseas Committee, especially the meeting of the Kibbutz

Secretariat on 23 July 1925. Quote from Tabenkin and Dan (Probably Hillel Dan [1900–69]who later became one of the heads of the construction cooperative “Solel Boneh”). See also ameeting with the secretary of theWorld Organization of Hehalutz, who recruited the delegation,held on 28 July 1925. According to his account, the existence of Hehalutz in Poland also reliedon this mission. Rapidly growing, the movement hardly had local activists and needed help:“the salvation [of Hehalutz] can come from the members in Palestine.” YTA, 1-2/1/1B.

40. Shva, Beni ratz, 16–22.41. Oppenheim, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 1:460.42. See, for example, resolutions from the Volhynia kibbutz in Klosova, He-Atid 42, 31 August

1926, taken with the participation of members of Hehalutz headquarters and HakibbutzHame’uhad.

43. The envoys from Palestine wanted to establish a permanent kibbutz in Klosova and to link it totheir movement at the time Benny was sent there. At a meeting of the Volhynia kibbutz held31 August–1 September 1926 and attended by an envoy, a resolution was passed to maintaina permanent hakhsharah kibbutz in Klosova. The resolution does not reflect a generalagreement since most members did not return to the kibbutz after the holidays. Dan, ed., SeferKlosova, 32.

44. Ibid., 41, 73–74, 103–4. The house was inaugurated in the beginning of 1927.45. Benny Marshak at the meeting of kibbutzim in Kajanka village (near Siemiaticze) in Polesia,

August 1927. Quoted in Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 121–22.46. Ibid.47. N. [Nahum] Benari letter, 15 November 1927, quoted in ibid., 118–19.48. Benny Marshak to Batya [Bendersky], March 1927, YTA, 15-121/2/4.49. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 43, 45.50. Ibid., 82.51. Tzur, “Pesach in the Land of Israel,” 84. The next haggadah available is from Ein Harod (1930)

in Palestine (1930), to which Klosova was related. Interestingly, this haggadah was writtenafter the arrival of the first Klosova pioneers in Palestine.

52. Tzur and Danieli, eds., Yotzim be-hodesh ha-aviv, 10–29.53. According to one of the sick girls, Benny’s future wife, who came to Klosova before him in the

spring of 1926. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 55.54. Ibid., 40, 44.55. Ibid., 40.56. The Klosova extensions were initially parts of one commune like the Work Battalion (hence

the term “company”), but were later remodeled as a union of independent communes likeHakibbutz Hame’uhad.

57. Oppenheim, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 1:467. Otiker, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 87–91.58. N. [Nahum] Benari, “Me-nesi’otai be-Polin (From my travels in Poland),” Davar, 13

December 1927, 2–3.59. See, for example, a visit by a Jewish member of the Sejm, historian Ignaz (Yitzhak) Shipper

(1884–1943), who stayed in the kibbutz for a few days. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 77.60. Otiker, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 112–25.61. Elihai, “Mifal ha-haksharah”; Oppenheim, “Ha-hakhsharah ha-kibbutzit shel Betar.”62. See, for instance, a dispute with Gruenbaum regarding the singing of the socialist anthem

“The International” in Hehalutz, He-Atid, 2 (110), 15 January 1931, 10.63. In 1929 already 60% of hakhsharah was according to the Klosova model, and this figure would

keep rising. Otiker, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 107.64. Moshe Braslavsky, in Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 227.65. Hershl Pinsky, in ibid., 225.66. Ibid., 80.67. Ibid., 56–78.68. For an example of the life and background of a potential member from Volhynia, see an

autobiography of an 18-year-old written in 1934, Yivo Archives, New York, RG 4, # 3501.69. Otiker, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 165–71.

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70. 15% in Hashomer Hatza’ir in 1935, compared to 6.9% in the general Hehalutz.71. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 27.72. Ibid., 41, 70.73. Kantor, Hayo hayah, 77–84.74. Ibid., 85–88.75. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 81.76. Ibid., 50.77. Halter, Ha-mimrah, 62.78. See for example autobiographies of Jewish youth, Yivo Archives, RG 4, # 3518, 3726 and

3816.79. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 48.80. Ibid., 68–69.81. Ibid., 51–52.82. Ibid., 69–71.83. Letter from Benari, 15 November 1927, in ibid., 118–20.84. Ibid., 109, 226.85. Ibid., 175.86. Ibid., 139.87. Ibid., 68.88. Cohen, Zikhronot, 14, 41.89. Ibid., 75–76.90. Oppenheim, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 2:141–44.91. Gender roles in hakhsharah and the position of women in the diaspora kibbutz deserve a

separate study, beyond the scope of this paper.92. Tabenkin’s oral report to Hakibbutz Hame’uhad Secretariat, 19 October 1933, YTA, 28/1/2-2.

Tabenkin quotes a report on illnesses in kibbutzim by Frumka (Eshed-Asherovsky).93. Sefer Klosova, 57.94. Ibid., 171–72. The envoy was Haim Ben-Asher (1904–98), future member of Knesset (MK)

on behalf of Mapai in the State of Israel.95. Ibid., 43.96. For example, ibid., 119.97. Ibid., 119.98. Ibid., 34, 75–76,99. Ibid., 83–84.100. Ibid., 87–98.101. Ghetto Fighters’ House Archive, Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta’ot (herafter GFHA), photo 56911.102. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 76. See his portrait on the stand of the Klosova kibbutz in Lutsk during

a bazaar for the JNF, GFHA, photo 03117.103. See his image on a poster behind a pioneer group, Keren he-Halutz, no. 1, 14 November 1924,

ILPA, 4-14-1924-24; in the office of a Klosova company, GFHA, photo 11294.104. Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 32.105. Ibid., 41.106. Cohen, Zikhronot, 40.107. For example, Dan, ed., Sefer Klosova, 225.108. Ibid., 144.109. Ibid., 57, 61, 185.110. There were 210,000 Jews in Palestine in mid-1933. Gurevich, Gertz, and Bachi, The Jewish

Population of Palestine, 26.111. Miriam Shlomovitz, letter to Lilia [Bassewitz], 6 May 1933, YTA, 2-12/3/5. She estimated

the average daily income of an experienced laborer in Poland (1–2 zlotys) was equivalent to35–70 mills of a Palestine pound (3.5–7 cents), and sometimes even less. The income ofinexperienced kibbutz members was even lower, and only about a half of them had worked.In comparison, workers in low-paying jobs in agriculture in Palestine were paid 200 mills aday (3–6 times higher), and in construction in the cities 350–400 mills and more during theyears of prosperity. See Shalom Zack’s survey at Hakibbutz Hame’uhad Secretariat, YTA,8/1/2-2.

112. Hakhsharah numbers include the five regional sections of Hehalutz and some 2,000 membersin separate kibbutzim of youth movements (mainly Hashomer Hatza’ir and Gordonia). Otiker,

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Tnu’at he-Halutz, 30–35, 105–132 (esp. 125), 146. Numbers fluctuated according to thenumber of certificates.

113. For a typical Klosova company in the peak years, see Kagan, Luboml, 126–27, 222–25. (Theshtetl’s name in Yiddish was Libivne). Otiker, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 125–32. An average kibbutzhad 25–50 members,

114. See, for example, letters of envoy Miriam Shlomovitz to Hehalutz center, 1933–1934, GFHA,24213.

115. Miriam Shlomovitz, letter to Hehalutz, 17 January 1934, GFHA, 24213.116. Shapira, Berl, 428–64.117. Protocols of Mapai Center, 21 November 1933, Israel Labor Party Archives, Beit Berl

(hereafter ILPA), 2-023-1933-5. See also Katznelson’s lecture at the council of Hano’arHa’oved (Federation of Working Youth), 22–23 December 1933. Ba-Ma’aleh, 7 January 1934.

118. Mapai Protocols, 21 November 1933.119. Berl Katznelson’s diary, 25 September 1933–26 October 1933, ILPA, 263-1924-6-4.120. I could not locate the full protocol of the meeting, only a small part of it which was published in

Sipuro shel Kibbutz Haksharah, 90–91. See also a letter from Ya’akov Eisenberg (Eshed) toTabenkin, 17 November 1933 (copy), YTA, 15-46/99/7.

121. Letter from Ze’ev Scherf (1906–84, future Israeli MK), 10 September 1933, ILPA, 86-1920-6-4. Scherf referred also to relations between Hehalutz and the party (Poale Zion), its youthmovement Freiheit, and its newspaper.

122. See, for example, report on the reception of pioneers, Batya Bendersky, Protocol of theExtended Kibbutz Secretariat (Hakibbutz Hame’uhad), 24–26 November 1933, YTA, 8/1/2-2.

123. Primarily Hehalutz Hatza’ir, Hashomer Hatza’ir, Gordonia and Freiheit.124. Mapai Protocols, 21 November 1933.125. Mapai Protocols, 21 November and 5 December 1933, IPLA, 2-023-1933-5; protocols of the

Histadrut Executive Committee, 21 November 1933, Labor Archives, Lavon Institute, TelAviv; Ha-ve’idah ha-revi’it, 85–112.

126. This is due to the political and ideological relations between the various elements in theHistadrut, which are beyond the scope of this paper. Generally speaking Hakibbutz Ha’artzi(Hashomer Hatza’ir) and Hever Hakvutzot (affiliated with Gordonia) had other perceptions oftheir relations with the Histadrut and Mapai and were interested in helping only their ownyouth movements and not the general section of Hehalutz. See Oppenheim, Tnu’at he-Halutz,2:233–95, 316–437.

127. See for example a very harsh description in a private letter by one envoy. She describes thepranks played on new members as “sadism.” The “cleaning” of their possessions was no longerdone covertly but by the entire kibbutz in front of the miserable member. They collectivelyexamined their belongings, including toothbrush, soap, razor blades, which thereafter“disappeared,” leaving new members completely stripped of their possessions. The followingday members would wear all their clothes. It was their only chance to wear new clothes asthe general property was treated so badly that clothes were quickly torn and destroyed. If thenewcomer objected he was told he should now be a “kibbutznik,” and his personal needs weretotally dismissed with insults and ridicule. Miriam Shlomovitz to Lilia [Bassewitz], 6 May1933, YTA, 2-12/3/5.

128. The word seems to be derived from a tune called “The Beggars’ Dance” from the famousYiddish play The Dybbuk, by S. Ansky.

129. Tabenkin demanded as many as 40–50 envoys. Meeting of the kibbutz secretariat, 19 October1933, YTA, 8/1/2-2. Leaders of Hakibbutz Hame’uhad wanted to impose a unification of thegeneral kibbutzim of Hehalutz with those of Hashomer Hatza’ir and Gordonia, hoping theactivists of these movements would thus help organize the rest of the organization.

130. His speech was published in Mibifnim 2, pt. 1, December 1933, 22–28 (reprinted edition).131. Ibid.132. Protocols, 24–25 November 1933, YTA, 8/1/2-2, p. 25.133. Ibid. 12–19.134. Ibid., 25–30. For Hakibbutz Hame’uhad’s perspective on the matter see Kaneri, Tabenkin,

335–54. Kaneri ignores the issue of imposing kibbutz life in Hehalutz and adopts themovement’s position in the conflict with Katznelson.

135. Protocol of the secretariat of Hano’ar Ha’oved, 18 February 1934, on a meeting with HakibbutzHame’uhad Secretariat, Labor Archives, Lavon Institute, IV-213-1-17-C. Tabenkin suggested

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establishing the center upon his return from Poland several months earlier. Meeting of thekibbutz secretariat, 19 October 1933, YTA, 8/1/2-2. Hakibbutz Hame’uhad apparently formedits center after the second session of the fourth convention of the Histadrut in January 1934,where Katznelson presented his program for the Youth Center to the public, following powerstruggles between the various kibbutz movements over the control of youth movements inPalestine. Hano’ar Ha’oved, which was affiliated to the Histadrut, was desperate for help andguidance but could not get it from the Histadrut and strengthened its ties with HakibbutzHame’uhad. See also Hano’ar Ha’oved protocols from 21 December 1933, 15 January 1934with kibbutz members (same file), and the secretariat’s diary, Labor Archives, Lavon Institute,IV-213-1-19.

136. Letter to Katznelson, 15 April 1935, IPLA, 4-6-1920-86.137. Shapira, Berl, 455–64. After the center’s failure Katznelson shifted his focus to the political

aspects of the relations between the Histadrut, Mapai and Hakibbutz Hame’uhad.138. Kafkafi, Emet o emunah, 56–57. The split began in 1942.139. Pseudonym of Moyshe Bunem Yustman (1889–1942), a leading journalist and publicist.140. Oppenheim, Tnu’at he-Halutz, 2:438–76, esp. 468–71.141. For further reading see Sarid, Be-mivhan ha-enut.142. Halter, Ha-mimrah, 63.

Notes on contributor

Rona Yona is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University. She iscurrently writing her dissertation, “‘Let Us All Be Pioneers’: Popular Pioneering and Nationalism inHehalutz in Poland between the Two World Wars.”

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