The Figure Behind the Cooperative Society: Syrkin, Socialist Zionism and the Kibbutz

Nachman Syrkin shaped a constructive socialist Zionist vision according to which the society should be built as a “cooperative of cooperatives.” Its crystallization process was to be at once from top down and from bottom up, voluntarily, by the members of the cooperative communities.

                                           The paper points out Syrkin’s influence and the impact of his vision upon the Labor Zionist leadership in the Yishuv. Our findings demonstrate that during the first years following WWI Syrkin's relationship with these leaders gradually strengthened. The torch was passed from the theorist to the political and social leadership.

                                           The encounter with Syrkin and his theory gave the Labor Zionist leaders confidence in their constructive socialist project. For these young leaders, Syrkin’s support and acknowledgment was vital. It inspired them to create a unique voluntary cooperative structure, that became the basis of the Zionist project in Palestine. In the following decades it deeply influenced the development and the basic policies of Israel.

                                           The present paper reveals that the cooperative structure was an incubator for the growth of voluntary intentional communities which were an important part of it: cooperative workers neighborhoods, moshav ovdim (worker's semi-cooperative settlements) and above all the Kibbutz – a socialist intentional community which combined national pioneering and social innovation, more than any other way of settlement. This combination led the kibbutz to become the spearhead of the Zionist fulfilment.

Therefore, we conclude that Syrkin's powerful vision inspired the cooperative structure that enabled the foundations of the state of Israel and the blossoming of the unique intentional communities developed within Zionism, first and foremost the kibbutz.