Ya'akov Zerubavel
{{Short description|Russian-born Zionist activist and writer; leader of Poale Zion movement}}{{Infobox person
| name = Ya'akov Zerubavel
| image = Ya'akov_Zerubavel.jpg
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| native_name = יעקב זרובבל
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1886|01|14}}
| birth_place = Poltava, Russian Empire
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1967|06|02|1886|01|14}}{{cite news |url=http://www.jta.org/1967/06/06/archive/yaakov-zerubavel-veteran-labor-zionist-leader-dies-in-israel-was-81 |title=Yaakov Zerubavel, Veteran Labor Zionist Leader, Dies in Israel; Was 81 |work=JTA |date=1967-06-06 |access-date=2014-10-10 }}
| death_place = Israel
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| native_name_lang = he
| other_names = Jacob Vitkin, Jacob Zerubavel
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| party = Poale Zion, Mapam
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Ya'akov Zerubavel ({{Langx|he|יעקב זרובבל}}; January 14, 1886 – June 2, 1967) was a Jewish Zionist activist, writer, publisher, and one of the leaders of the Poale Zion movement.
Biography
Ya'akov (Vitkin) Zerubavel was born in Poltava in the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine). As a boy, he studied in a heder.{{cite book|author=Yael Chaver|title=What Must Be Forgotten: The Survival Of Yiddish Writing In Zionist Palestine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HokdneXRgeQC&pg=PA97|date=January 2004|publisher=Syracuse University Press|isbn=978-0-8156-3050-0|pages=97–}}
Zionist activism
As a young man, he joined the Poale Zion movement and was elected to its executive board in 1906. Zerubavel was a central member of the party in Vilna and a member of the party's central committee in Russia. After helping fellow Zionist Ber Borochov publish an underground newspaper, Zerubavel moved to Vilna. He spent 18 months in prison before moving to Lvov, where he worked on the editorial board of the Yiddish newspaper Der Yiddisher Arbeter.{{cite web |url=http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1129062 |title=Portrait of Jacob Zerubavel |access-date=October 10, 2014}}
Political career
File:מערכת האחדות, מר בן צבי, מר זרובבל, בן גוריון, גב' רחל ינאית - בן צבי.-JNF039327.jpeg, Zerubavel, Ben Gurion & Yanaita Ben Zvi 1911]]
In 1910 Zerubavel immigrated to Palestine, where he became one of the leaders of the Poale Zion movement along with David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.{{cite book|author1=S. Almog|author2=Jehuda Reinharz|author3=Anita Shapira|title=Zionism and Religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mS6oW4TTuwkC&pg=PA244|year=1998|publisher=UPNE|isbn=978-0-87451-882-5|pages=244–}} Zerubavel was sentenced to prison by Ottoman authorities during World War I, but he managed to escape and fled to the United States in 1915. Zerubavel returned to Russia following the October Revolution in 1917, becoming a member of the National Jewish Council of Ukraine. He returned to Poland in 1918, where he served as a leader of the Poale Zion and edited a Yiddish newspaper. In 1935 Zerubavel was allowed by British Mandatory authorities to return to Palestine. He served on the executive committee of the Histadrut, whose labor archive he directed beginning in 1951.
In 1949 he became a member of the Palestine Zionist Executive, and helped found the Mapam party.
Views and opinions
References
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Category:Politicians from Poltava
Category:People from Poltava Governorate
Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the Ottoman Empire
Category:Zionists from the Russian Empire
Category:Jews from the Russian Empire
Category:Jewish Ukrainian writers
Category:Yiddish-language writers
Category:Poale Zion politicians
Category:Jewish trade unionists