We hereby turn to you with a request to contribute to this section and to enrich it with your writing. The first issue is soon to be published, and we await your manuscript.
Naturally, an appropriate honorarium for your contribution will be paid to you in full…”
Chaim Arlosoroff
Violent pogroms forced Arlosoroff to immigrate from modern Ukraine to Germany, where he encountered Zionist ideals at the University of Berlin, becoming a leader of the Hapoel Hatzair young workers political party. During his first visit to Palestine in 1921, he found himself in the midst of the Jaffa Riots leading him to focus on Arab-Jewish relations, advocating compromise, and sometimes finding himself at odds with members of his party. In 1924, he settled in pre-state Israel which he represented at the League of Nations. After helping unite Paole Zion and Hapoel Hatzair to form the Mapai Labour Party, Arlosoroff held leadership positions in the Zionist Congress’ Executive and the Jewish Agency for Palestine, in which capacity he worked closely with the British Administration that oversaw Palestine and, beginning in 1933, turned his attention to the plight of German Jews, resulting in the Haavara Agreement which settled nearly 50,000 Jewish refugees in Mandatory Palestine, helping to double in size the Jewish population.
On June 16, 1933, two days after returning from negotiations in Germany, Arlosoroff was assassinated while walking with his wife on the beach in Tel Aviv. His political enemies were tried but acquitted and the identity of his murderers remains a mystery.
Our letter discusses the journal of the Zionist Socialist Labor Party Ahdut Haavoda, founded in 1919 under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion and which merged with Hapoel Hatzair in December 1930 to create the Mapai Party. Ahdut Haavoda was the founder of the Haganah defense organization, an extension of Hashomer, and the name Ahdut Haavoda would be used again by the dissident members of the Mapai party in 1944.
After immigrating to Palestine as a child, the recipient of our letter, Bracha Habas, found that educational opportunities for women were lacking as lessons were given in Arabic or absent altogether. Eventually, Habas attended the Training Seminary for Women Teachers and joined the Ahdut Haavoda party, under whose auspices she pioneered a number of classes and educational courses for Jewish women and others. After additional training in Germany, Habas taught at the model elementary school attached to the Training Seminary through 1933. She wrote articles for various publications beginning in 1921, authored booklets that chronicled the history of working Israel and co-founded and edited the children’s newspaper Davar le-Yeladim, with which she remained involved for 25 years. In our letter Arlosoroff writes on behalf of the editorial board inviting Habas to write for the new Labor publication. Despite her pioneering work as the first female journalist of the young state and her prolific non-fiction output, Habas aspired to the world of belles-lettres, authoring short stories and children’s books.
Folded into quarters with normal wear. In very good condition.
