Ahdut ha-Avodah

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AHDUT HA-AVODAH

An Israeli socialist party founded in 1919 by veterans of the Jewish Legion and other Palestine pioneers.

With strong support in the Kibbutz ha-Me'uhad movement, Ahdut ha-Avodah (also Achdut Ha'-Avodah; The Unity of Labor) worked for the unification of Jewish labor movements and the development of new forms of settlement and labor units. It rejected Marxist doctrines of class warfare in favor of social democracy. In 1930, it joined with others in founding the MAPAI party. Becoming independent from that party in 1944, Ahdut haAvodah joined with ha-Shomer ha-Tzaʿir, a Zionist socialist youth movement, to found the more radical left-wing MAPAM in 1948. It split with MAPAM in 1954, formed an alignment with MAPAI in 1965, and in 1968 merged again with MAPAI and the Rafi Party to form the Israeli Labor Party. Among those closely associated with it were David Ben-Gurion, Yizhak Ben-Zvi, Yitzhak Tabenkin, Moshe David Remez, and Berl Katznelson.

see also ben-gurion, david; ben-zvi, yizhak; ha-shomer ha-tzaʿir; israel: political parties in; katznelson, berl.

Bibliography


Rolef, Susan Hattis, ed. Political Dictionary of Israel, 2d edition. New York: Macmillan, 1993.

Walter F. Weiker