Hebrew Labor
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"Hebrew labor" (, ''Avoda Ivrit'') and "" (''Kibush haAvoda'') are two related terms and concepts. One of them refers to the ideal adopted by some
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
in Ottoman and
Mandate Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordanwhich had been part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuriesfollowing the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in Wo ...
during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and later embraced by
Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
to favour hiring Jewish rather than non-Jewish workers. Another one is the slogan for the Jews to embrace productive (industrial and agricultural) labor rather than being engaged only in trades and professions."Kibbush Haavoda (conquest of labor)" at ''Zionism and Israel''"Avoda Ivrit (Jewish labor)" at ''Zionism and Israel''


Background


End of the Ottoman period

During the
Second Aliyah The Second Aliyah () was an aliyah (Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel) that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews, mostly from Russia, with some from Yemen, immigrated into Ottoman Palestine. The Sec ...
period many Jewish immigrants to Ottoman
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
sought year-round jobs on the agricultural tracts and plantations of their fellow Jews who had arrived during the
First Aliyah The First Aliyah (), also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (''aliyah'') to History of Israel#Ottoman period , Ottoman Palestine (region) , Palestine between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave cam ...
. Rather than hire their fellow Jews, the immigrants of the First Aliyah were initially inclined to hire local Arabs who provided cheaper labor. Eventually the immigrant laborers of the Second Aliyah successfully unionized and emphasized their Jewish identity and shared nationalist goals in order to persuade the First Aliyah immigrants to hire them and thereby displace the Arab labor. They organized under the banner of "Hebrew Labor" and "conquest of labor". The struggle for Jewish labor, for Jews to employ only Jews, signified the victory of Jewish labor in creating a new society.Smith (2001), p. 118 This struggle was constantly pushed by the leaders of the Second
Aliyah ''Aliyah'' (, ; ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from Jewish diaspora, the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine (region), Palestine region, which is today chiefly represented by the Israel ...
(1904-1914), who founded
Labor Zionism Labor Zionism () or socialist Zionism () is the left-wing, socialist variant of Zionism. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations, and was seen as the Zionist faction of the historic Jewish ...
and in the 1930s became the leaders of the
Zionist Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
movement. Shortly after his arrival in Palestine in 1906
David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...
noted that a
moshav A moshav (, plural ', "settlement, village") is a type of Israeli village or town or Jewish settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 and 1 ...
a, a private Jewish agricultural settlement, employed Arabs as guards. He asked himself: "Was it conceivable that here too we should be deep in Galuth, hiring strangers to guard our property and protect our lives?". Soon Ben-Gurion and his companions managed to amend this situation. According to
Shabtai Teveth Shabtai Teveth (; 1925 – 1 November 2014) was an Israeli historian and author. Teveth was born in 1925 and grew up in the worker' quarters at the Migdal Tzedek quarry, where his father worked, near Petah Tikva. He began working as a journali ...
in these early years Ben-Gurion developed the concept of'' 'Avodah Ivrit', ''or 'Jewish labour'. The leaders of the Second Aliyah agreed that Jewish labor was vital for the national revival process, as they were convinced that Jews should 'redeem' themselves by building with their own hands a new type of Jewish society. They also thought the use of Arab labor could create a typical colonial society, exploiting cheap, unorganized local labor, and would hamper further Jewish immigration. Finally they considered manual labor a good therapy for Jews as individuals and as a people. In Ben-Gurion's opinion, Jewish labor was "not a means but a sublime end", the Jew had to be transformed and made creative. In 1907, Ben-Gurion called for Jewish labor on lands owned by the
Jewish National Fund The Jewish National Fund (JNF; , ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael''; previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') is a non-profit organizationProfessor Alon Tal, The Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, The Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion ...
. There were difficulties here, because Arabs were prepared to work long hours for very low wages, and most Jewish immigrants preferred to settle in the cities. In this context occurred the development of the concept of the
kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
, 'the co-operative settlement based on self-labour and motivated by Zionist ideals'. In a summary made in 1956, Ben-Gurion said the kibbutz movement was not started because of some socialist theory, but as an effective way to "guarantee Jewish labour". Ben Gurion said:


Mandate period

Around 1920 Ben-Gurion began to call for Jewish labor in the entire economy, and labor Zionism started striving for an absolute segregation of the Jewish and Arab national communities. In this way 'Jews and Arabs ..would live in separate settlements and work in separate economies'. Ben-Gurion used the
1929 Palestine riots The 1929 Palestine riots, Buraq Uprising (, ) or the Events of 1929 (, , ''lit.'' Events of 5689 Anno Mundi), was a series of demonstrations and riots in late August 1929 in which a longstanding dispute between Palestinian Arabs and Jews ove ...
and the 1936 Arab general strike as opportunities to further enforce his drive for Jewish labor. In 1930 the Hope Simpson Report blamed the Jewish labor policy for the grave unemployment in the Arab sector. According to Flapan in 1933 the
Histadrut Histadrut, fully the New General Workers' Federation () and until 1994 the General Federation of Labour in the Land of Israel (, ''HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael''), is Israel's national trade union center and represents the m ...
launched its first campaign to remove Arab workers from the cities. In many cases the removal of Arab workers 'took the form of ugly scenes of violence'. Reports of this in the Jewish and Arab press 'created an atmosphere of unprecedented tension'. According to Flapan this forceful eviction of Arab workers and the 'acrimonious propaganda' which accompanied the operation amplified Arab hostility and ultimately precipitated the outbreak of the Arab revolt in 1936. In 1947 the UN Special Commission on Palestine summarized the situation:
The economic life presents the complex phenomenon of two distinctive economies—one Jewish and one Arab, closely involved with one another and yet in essential features separate. . . . Apart from a small number of experts, no Jewish workers are employed in Arab undertakings and apart from citrus groves, very few Arabs are employed in Jewish enterprises. . . . Government service, the Potash company and the oil refinery are almost the only places where Arab and Jews meet as co-workers in the same organization. . . . There are considerable differences between the rates of wage for Arab and Jewish workers in similar occupations.


State of Israel


After the Second Intifada

It 1995, the Israeli Employment (Equal Opportunities) Law was amended to prohibit discrimination based on nationality. In recent times there have been attempts at reviving the practice of hiring exclusively Jewish labor in Israel and the occupied territories, particularly after the
Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...
. While this is illegal in Israel since 1995, many employers, using a
loophole A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system. Originally, the word meant an arrowslit, a narrow vertic ...
in the law, cite overriding security concerns. Some organizations attempted to encourage "Hebrew labor" an apparently legal ways. An example is the "Hebrew Job Board" () website, which was encouraging "Hebrew labor" by publishing the list of "Jew-only" businesses and warning about security risks and danger of ''hitbolelut'' (
Jewish assimilation Jewish assimilation (, ''hitbolelut'') refers either to the gradual cultural assimilation and social integration of Jews in their surrounding culture or to an ideological program in the age of emancipation promoting conformity as a potential so ...
) involved in hiring non-Jews, It was found to be engaged in discrimination and ordered to pay a fine. In an appeal, the organization claimed that their purpose was the historical tradition of ''
tzedakah ''Tzedakah'' ( ''ṣədāqā'', ) is a Hebrew word meaning "righteousness", but commonly used to signify ''charity''. This concept of "charity" differs from the modern Western understanding of "charity". The latter is typically understood as ...
'' (charitable work) aimed at helping Jews with their livelihoods, and vouched to amend their online activities to comply with the law. Some right-wing organizations tried to ostracize the businesses that employ Arabs. In March 2008, in light of the Mercaz HaRav massacre, perpetrated by an Arab
East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the portion of Jerusalem that was Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, held by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Captured and occupied in 1967, th ...
resident who was initially reported to have been an employee of the seminary, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky ruled "it is completely forbidden to hire Arabs, especially in
yeshivas A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The studyin ...
" due to the "concern of endangering lives". One week later the Chief Rabbi of
Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...
and
Kiryat Arba Kiryat Arba or Qiryat Arba () is an urban Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron, in the southern Israeli-occupied West Bank. Founded in 1968, in it had a population of . The international community considers Israeli settlements in the ...
, Rabbi
Dov Lior Dov Lior (; born 30 October 1933) is an Israeli Orthodox rabbi and political figure part of a far-right, nationalist movement for an ethnic and religious state. He served as the Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba, a Jewish settlement near the West Ban ...
ruled that "it is strictly prohibited to hire Arabs, or to rent houses on Israeli land to them. Their employment is out of the question, not only in the yeshivas but also in hotels or factories; basically anywhere."''Rabbi Lior Speaks Out Against Hiring of Arabs''
Yedioth Ahronoth:
Ynet Ynet (stylized in all lowercase) is an Israeli news and general-content website, and the online outlet for the '' Yedioth Ahronoth'' newspaper. History Ynet launched on June 6, 2000, in Hebrew, following other Hebrew outlet's website launches ...
, 20 March 2008.


Terminology


Hebrew labor

"Hebrew labor" is often also referred to as "Jewish labor", although the former is the literal translation of "avoda ivrit". According to Even-Zohar the immigrants of the
Second Aliyah The Second Aliyah () was an aliyah (Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel) that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews, mostly from Russia, with some from Yemen, immigrated into Ottoman Palestine. The Sec ...
preferred to use the word "Hebrew" because they wanted to emphasize the difference between their "new Hebrew" identity and the "old
Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...
Jewish" identity. For them the word "Hebrew" had romantic connotations with the "purity" and "authenticity" of the existence of the "Hebrew nation in its land", like it had been in the past.Even-Zohar (1996) Related to the concept of "Hebrew labor" was the concept of "alien labor". Ben-Gurion wrote about the settlers of the
First Aliyah The First Aliyah (), also known as the agriculture Aliyah, was a major wave of Jewish immigration (''aliyah'') to History of Israel#Ottoman period , Ottoman Palestine (region) , Palestine between 1881 and 1903. Jews who migrated in this wave cam ...
: "They introduced the idol of exile to the temple of national rebirth, and the creation of the new homeland was desecrated by ''avodah zara''". According to Shapira ''avodah zara'' means both "alien labor" and, in a religious sense, "idol worship". Along with bloodshed and incest this is one of the three worst sins in Judaism. Application of this concept to the employment of Arab workers by Jews depicted this as a taboo.Shapira (1999), p. 64


Conquest of labor


See also

*
Labor Zionism Labor Zionism () or socialist Zionism () is the left-wing, socialist variant of Zionism. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations, and was seen as the Zionist faction of the historic Jewish ...
*
Muscular Judaism Muscular Judaism () is a term coined by Max Nordau in his speech at the Second Zionist Congress held in Basel on August 28, 1898. In his speech, he spoke about the need to design the " new Jew" and reject the " old Jew", with the mental and physi ...
* Arab general strike (Mandatory Palestine) * Antisemitic boycotts ** Arab boycott *
Austerity in Israel In economic policy, austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: hig ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* Revised reprint of article of the same title from ''Papers in Zionism'' 4 (October 1981), pp. 167–184, . * Minimal text access via Google Books (15 September 2021). * No text access via Google Books (15 September 2021). * * * No text access to any edition via Google Books (15 September 2021). * * Minimal text access via Google Books (15 September 2021). * * {{refend Economic history of Israel History of Zionism Judaism and social class Zionism in Mandatory Palestine Working class in Israel Labor Zionism