YA'ARI (Wald), ME'IR

YA'ARI (Wald), ME'IR (1897–1987), ideologist and leader of *Ha-Shomer ha-Ẓa'ir and *Mapam; member of the First to Seventh Knessets. Ya'ari was born in Rzeszow, Galicia. He moved to Vienna before the outbreak of World War i, and volunteered for the Austrian army at the age of 17, serving as an officer until the end of the war. In 1919 Ya'ari began agricultural training on the estate of a Jewish landowner near Vienna. He joined one of the first groups that constituted Ha-Shomer ha-Ẓa'ir in Vienna, which at the time combined romanticism with Martin *Buber's philosophy and Gustav *Landauer's socialism. In 1920 Ya'ari settled in Palestine, living at first in Kinneret, where he participated in the construction of the Tiberias-Ẓemaḥ and Tiberias-Tabgha roads. Later he lived in Upper Bitania with a group of friends who engaged in hard physical labor. The nightly conversations there eventually evolved into the collection of essays titled Kehilliyyatenu ("Our Community"), describing the conflict between the romantic Zionist dreams and the harsh reality of Ereẓ Israel.

As the leading ideologist of Ha-Shomer ha-Ẓa'ir Ya'ari was largely responsible for changing it from a romantic youth movement into an indigenous political and educational body with a defined Left-wing ideological platform. For close to half a century he played a key role in forging the basic principle of "ideological collectivism," stating that the *kibbutz could not exist unless it was based on collectivism, in the economic, socio-cultural, and ideological-political spheres.

Ya'ari adhered to Ber *Borochov's doctrine of a synthesis between settlement work and class struggle, and attempted to base Mapam, established in 1948, on "an alliance between city workers and agricultural settlements." Although for many years Ya'ari, who was a Marxist, openly and emphatically supported the socialism of the Soviet Union, he denounced its injustices, and voiced his criticism of the Soviet attitude toward Soviet Jewry, and toward Zionism. Ya'ari was the first secretary general of Mapam, serving in this position from 1948 to 1971. He was first elected to the First Knesset as the leader of Mapam. By the mid-1950s, following the doctors' trials in Moscow, and Mordechai Oren's trial in Prague, he became increasingly disenchanted with Soviet socialism. After the 1967 Six-Day War he strongly supported the alignment of Mapam with the *Israel Labor Party, and in his last Knesset – the Seventh Knesset elected in 1969 – ran on the Alignment list. He supported the Alignment until 1984, when the Labor Party decided to join a National Unity Government with the Likud.

Among his writings are Be-Meri Vikku'aḥ ("In the Revolt of Debate," 1940); Be-Derekh Arukah ("The Long Road," 1947); Ketavim ("Writings," 1947); Kibbutz ha-Galuyot ba-Aspaklaryah shel Yameinu ("Ingathering of the Exiles in Our Time," 1954); Mivḥanei Dorenu ("Trials of Our Generation," 1957); Be-Siman Aḥdut ve-Aẓma'ut ("For Unity and Independence," 1968); and Ba-Ma'avak le-Amal Meshuḥrar ("In the Struggle for Freed Labor," 1972).

bibliography:

L. Eshkol, Mul Kitrugo shel Me'ir Ya'ari (1960); M. Chizik (ed.), Haguto u-Manhiguto shel Me'ir Ya'ari (1988); D. Zayit and Y. Shamir (eds.), Dyokano shel Manhig ke-Adam Ẓa'ir: Me'ir Ya'ari, Pirkei Ḥayyim 1897 – 1927 (1992); Y. Hurwitz, Me'ir Ya'ari: Pe'ulato be-Derekh Arukah (1994).

[Jacob Amit /

Susan Hattis Rolef (2^nd ed.)]