Summary
The Zionist movement’s first Arabic-language newspaper, launched by the Histadrut in April 1925 to develop Arab workers’ class consciousness along labour-Zionist lines, which survived only on subsidy, reached usually about 500 copies, and ceased publication at the beginning of 1928 (Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, lines 982-986, 1012).
Details
- Yitzhak Ben-Zvi persuaded the Zionist Executive to subsidise the project and let the Histadrut run it; Ben-Tzvi edited it first himself, then Dr. Nissim Malul, and when Malul moved to Baghdad his wife and later yet another Arabic-speaking Jew took charge. Its name (perhaps coincidentally) had also been that of a workers’ newspaper published the previous year by the short-lived Egyptian labor federation aligned with the nationalist Wafd party (line 982).
- Its stated purpose was “to impart to the Arab proletarian reader general concepts from the international workers’ movement and an understanding of the activities and position of the Histadrut in Palestine, and to develop his class consciousness” (line 984; Chapter 2 note 39).
- It serialised classic texts by Ferdinand Lassalle and others, published translations from Maxim Gorky and Oscar Wilde, and carried Histadrut and international labour news (line 984).
- Lockman judges its impact likely slight — most of its target audience was illiterate and literate readers were probably the most hostile to Zionism — and notes that from summer 1926 the General Zionists who dominated the Zionist leadership used their funding leverage to shift it from labour-Zionist content toward the Yishuv as a whole (line 986).
- It ceased publication at the beginning of 1928 after the Zionist Executive cut its subsidy (line 1012; Chapter 2 note 49).
Related pages
Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948, Histadrut, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Joint Organization