'התברגנות' ו'שחיתות' במפא"י בראשית שנות החמישים: מידות ציבוריות ופיקוח מפלגתי

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The early 1950s were a period of trial in the history of the various branches of the Zionist movement. This is especially true of the political party, Mapai (the party of the workers of Eretz-Israel), the dominant force within Labor Zionism that led the process of constituting the new Jewish political society. These were years of transition from a voluntary society to a sovereign society or a state, and certain difficulties were experienced in adjusting to the change. Not the least of these difficulties was the crisis relating to acceptable norms of behavior that took place at the time. During the voluntary period in the pre-state Jewish Yishuv, the political, social and even economical practice of Labor Zionism and Mapai was based on a volunteering and pioneering ethos, a spirit called Ḥalużiut. It enabled the political center of the Yishuv, led by Mapai, to motivate people to devote extended periods of their lives to the collective cause and to accommodate their life-style to the collective interest. The egalitarian and socialist values of Labor Zionism were a very important part of that ability to motivate people to collectivist social behavior. One of the main sources that nourished the volunteering spirit and behavior was the notion that this spirit and behavior were indispensable tools for the process of building the Jewish homeland. The establishment of the Jewish state, therefore, removed one of the most important sources of the Yishuv's volunteering spirit, that is, the national needs of the Jewish people on account of its statelessness, and created a crisis of norms typical to such periods of transition. This crisis was felt in two major areas: a change in the behavior of the leaders, members, and supporters of the Labor movement, including Mapai, to a relatively more egotistical pattern of behavior and to a non-proletarian life-style; and a change in the overall behavior of the Jewish, now Israeli, population led by the Labor movement – increasing social and economical transgressions that was commonly described as corruption. This article examines the ways that Mapai dealt with this crisis in accepted norms. It probes the internal response to this crisis: the response of members of the Mapai party, its periodicals, leaders, apparatus, and the response of the various groups within the party, including opposition groups. The main focus is placed on a number of conflicts that occurred in the context of this crisis and especially over the right of the party's controlling organ to monitor the behavior of the party's representatives within the government, the Trade-Union movement and the Jewish Agency. This article examines, in particular, some of the struggles over the standard of living of the party's leadership and conflicts over an alleged propensity by party leaders and the lower party apparatus to cover up acts of corruption. The article concludes that the normative change that took place in this era was one aspect of a more general process – the transformation of Mapai into a government party within a sovereign state completely founded on a hierarchy of activists and politicians. Some leaders and party activists sought to use their newly acquired power in the new state for their own personal or political benefit. They were confronted with internal opposition groups that challenged their new political, social and economical position. What internal critics perceived as phenomena of corruption was one of the main issues of these debates. But this transformation of Mapai dictated the failure of the attempts to combat effectively the change of norms within Mapai. From this point of view, both the efforts of the party's controlling organ and those of various opposition groups were doomed to failure. Nevertheless, the intensity of the debates reveals the strength of the egalitarian and volunteering ethos in Mapai even during the 1950s.
Original languageHebrew
Pages (from-to)69-104
Number of pages36
Journalציון: רבעון לחקר תולדות ישראל
Volumeסח
Issue numberא
StatePublished - 2003

Cite this