Before becoming Israel’s second and longest-serving president in 1952, Ukraine-born Ben-Zvi co-founded Yishuv self-defense groups Bar Giora and Hashomer. He became a Poalei Zion leader after immigrating to Palestine in 1907. He was prominent in the development of the Histadrut, attended Zionist Congresses, served as the Va’ad Leumi chairman and president, and signed the Declaration of Independence.
With the British spending local revenue on strategic needs — ports, roads and communication systems — scant funds were devoted to education in the Mandate. Already baked into diasporic habits, the Jewish community raced forward in educating its own in Palestine to inculcate penetrating attachments to Palestine as the Jewish national home. Arab youth literacy ran in place, with separatist education contributing mightily to communal divisions, as occurred simultaneously in the economic and geospatial spheres.
A key figure in the Jewish Agency’s Political Department, Shertok, later Moshe Sharett argues for a Jewish commonwealth/state in Palestine. Pragmatically he realizes Arabs in Palestine oppose Jewish presence, yet he fully rejects a potential binational Arab-Jewish state, suggesting that the end of WWII will be a turning point in favor of a Jewish state.
April 15, 2025 Dr. Eli Sperling © Center for Israel Education, 2025 Israeli music offers a powerful lens through which we can understand the country’s cultural and political evolution, serving as both a unifying force…
Dive in, or choose a pathway: Topics, Types, Eras and/or Languages. Explore robust content. Come back often for more.
