WWI HeHalutz or HeChalutz the pioneering Zionist movements original pin badge

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HeHalutz
or
HeChalutz
(
Hebrew
:
הֶחָלוּץ
, lit. "The Pioneer") was a Jewish youth movement that trained young people for agricultural settlement in the
Land of Israel
. It became an umbrella organization of the pioneering
Zionist youth movements
.
Contents
1
History
1.1
Before WWI (1905-1914)
1.2
First World War (1914-1918)
1.3
Interbellum (1918-1939)
1.3.1
North America
1.3.2
Germany
1.3.3
1939
1.4
Second World War (1939-1945)
1.5
After WWII
2
References
History
Before WWI (1905-1914)
HeHalutz was founded by Eliezer Joffe in America in 1905, and about the same time in
Russia
.
[1]
First World War (1914-1918)
During
World War I
, HeHalutz branches opened across Europe (including Russia), America and Canada. Leaders of the organization included
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
(later the second president of the
State of Israel
), and
David Ben-Gurion
(later the first Prime Minister of Israel) in America, and
Joseph Trumpeldor
in Russia.
Ben-Gurion was living in
Jerusalem
at the start of the First World War, where he and Ben Zvi recruited forty Jews into a Jewish militia to assist the
Ottoman
army. Despite this, he was deported to Egypt in March 1915. From there he made his way to the United States, where he remained for three years. On his arrival, he and Ben Zvi went on a tour of 35 cities in an attempt to raise a Hechalutz "pioneer army" of 10,000 men to fight on Turkey's side.
[2]
They succeeded in recruiting 63 volunteers.
[3]
After the
Balfour Declaration
of November 1917, the situation changed dramatically and Ben-Gurion, with the interest of Zionism in mind, switched sides and joined the newly formed
Jewish Legion
of the
British Army
, leaving to fight the Turks in Palestine.
Interbellum (1918-1939)
Maciejów,
Poland
branch of HeHalutz Hatzair, 1930 (Courtesy of the Yossef Karpus Collection at the American Folklife Center)
At its peak, between 1930 and 1935, HeHalutz operated in 25 countries throughout Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Northern South America.
North America
In 1932-1934,
Golda Meir
, later the
prime minister of Israel
, was the secretary of the women's chapter of HeHalutz in the United States.
[4]
In 1932, the organization established headquarters in New York and twenty branches in cities and towns throughout the United States and Canada. Farms were then established to train members for agricultural work in Palestine. Such farms operated in
Cream Ridge
and
Hightstown
,
New Jersey
;
Poughkeepsie
,
New York
;
Smithville, Ontario
; and
Colton, California
.
[5]
Germany
In 1933, after Jews were expelled from the workforce in
Nazi Germany
, HeHalutz farms became the primary framework for vocational training and preparation for emigration.
[6]
1939
By the eve of
Second World War
in 1939, HeHalutz numbered 100,000 members worldwide, with approximately 60,000 having already emigrated (
aliyah
) to
Mandate Palestine
, and with 16,000 members in training centers (
hakhsharot
) for the pioneering life in the Land of Israel.
[7]
Second World War (1939-1945)
During the war and German occupation, Jews in some ghettos in Europe established Hechalutz units, as in
Lithuania
's
Šiauliai Ghetto
.
[8]
After WWII
By the 1950s HeHalutz "was absorbed by
Hashomer Hatzair
, which had always maintained a large degree of autonomy. Nominally, however, the He-Ḥalutz Organization of America still exists."
[9]