Ha’am

Ha’am ("The People") was a Hebrew daily newspaper published in Jerusalem in 1931 by the Union of Revisionist Zionists, known by its Hebrew acronym Hatzah. Established in advance of the Seventeenth Zionist Congress, it served as a prominent platform for the Revisionist movement, challenged the policies of the British Mandate, and reported on the movement’s internal debates. Although it appeared for only a few months, Ha’am became part of the history of Hebrew journalism and of the political culture that shaped the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine.

A newspaper born from a Zionist dispute

Ha’am emerged during a period of growing disagreement within the Zionist leadership over how to advance the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Frustration with the British government and the Mandate authorities was widespread, while leaders including Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow, and Ze’ev Jabotinsky differed sharply over strategy. Jabotinsky, leader of the Revisionist movement, decided that his movement needed a daily newspaper capable of expressing its political vision and reaching readers in Palestine and the Diaspora.

To produce the paper, the publishing company Migdalor was established on 21 May 1930. Its founders included Revisionist activists Avraham Vinshel, Shmuel Fassman, Shlomo Gepstein, and David Melamed. The initiators hoped to publish Ha’am in Hebrew, English, and German, but they could not raise sufficient funds. The paper ultimately appeared only in Hebrew and operated throughout its brief existence under severe financial constraints.

Publication in Jerusalem and closure by the Mandate authorities

The first issue appeared on 24 March 1931. One hundred issues were printed regularly in Jerusalem over approximately four months, with the final issue appearing on 7 August. Between 16 June and 2 July, the British Mandate authorities suspended publication on the orders of High Commissioner Sir John Chancellor, alleging that the paper had published inciting material.

According to a later explanation by David Tidhar, the closure was connected to articles by Benjamin Ze’ev von Weisl accusing Jerusalem’s mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, of inciting unrest in Palestine. Publication resumed on 2 July, but only for a little more than a month. The episode demonstrated both the vulnerability of political journalism under the Mandate and the importance that the authorities attached to the newspaper’s public influence.

A platform for Revisionist Zionism

Ha’am’s central purpose was to explain and promote Zionism from a Revisionist perspective. It reported on the movement’s branches in Palestine and across the Diaspora, followed debates within the Zionist organization, and criticized the policies of the British administration. It also included sections devoted to literature, sport, and law. Its editorial column, titled “Ha’am’s Journal,” connected the newspaper’s institutional position with a running interpretation of current events.

Jabotinsky served as editor-in-chief and published essays and articles in its pages. The paper was managed in practice by Dr. Benjamin Ze’ev von Weisl, who also wrote under the pen name “Avi Na’ama.” Von Weisl published articles on the history of Revisionist Zionism, which he understood as a form of “renewed Zionism.” Dr. Yehoshua Heshel Yevin was appointed responsible editor.

The newspaper’s contributors gave it a cultural and intellectual range that extended beyond party journalism. They included the thinker Abba Ahimeir; the poet Uri Zvi Greenberg; historian Ben-Zion Netanyahu; poet Avigdor Hameiri; researcher David Tidhar; Meir Grossman; Dr. Benjamin Lubotsky, later Benjamin Eliav; and Uriel Halperin, later known as Yonatan Ratosh. Hemda Ben-Yehuda contributed a series of articles on “Memories from the Life of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.” Other contributors included Bezalel Elitzadek, Yohanan Pogrebinsky, David Siton, Daniel Sirkis, Hillel Rosenberg, Yosef Klarman, and others.

Protest against British censorship

Jabotinsky responded publicly to the suspension of Ha’am in the Paris-based newspaper Rassvyet on 21 June 1931. He described the closure of a newspaper as an exceptional step in a democratic society, expressed appreciation for the members of Ha’am’s staff, and hoped that they would succeed in resuming publication. He also argued that criticism of the Mandate regime could not be silenced through coercive measures.

In his account, Ha’am was a fighting newspaper that defended the principles of political Zionism and condemned what he regarded as the Mandate government’s anti-Zionist policy. The paper itself criticized the authorities’ intention to conduct a population census, questioning whether the census would be carried out and reported fairly. In doing so, it participated in a broader struggle over the Jewish community’s right to criticize the ruling power, interpret political reality, and demand policies supportive of the Zionist project.

A forum for debate within the Revisionist movement

Ha’am was not merely a vehicle for criticism of the British authorities or of the Zionist leadership. Its pages became an important arena for a dispute over whether the Revisionist movement should leave the World Zionist Organization or remain within it. Jabotinsky favored withdrawal, while Meir Grossman opposed it. Because the question affected the movement’s future, the newspaper became significant to both camps as a means of shaping public opinion.

Von Weisl, who edited Ha’am and also served as president of the Central Committee of Hatzah in Palestine, published a series of articles on the internal controversy. On 24 April 1931, Jabotinsky instructed him, in his capacity as editor-in-chief, to end the public discussion of internal party disputes. At the Sixth National Conference of the Union of Revisionist Zionists in Palestine, held from 8 to 10 May, the opposition faction likewise sought to prevent discussion of the question of withdrawal and demanded that Ha’am be placed under the official supervision of the movement’s central leadership.

Reporting on the Seventeenth Zionist Congress

The Seventeenth Zionist Congress, for which Ha’am had been established, met in Basel from 30 June to 15 July 1931. The newspaper reported on the ideological struggle at the Congress and published speeches by Revisionist delegates. It brought readers Jabotinsky’s criticism of the Zionist Organization’s leadership and reported his dramatic decision to tear up his delegate card and call on his supporters to leave the organization and establish a new Zionist framework.

In this way, Ha’am was more than a short-lived newspaper. It helped disseminate a political idea, mobilize supporters, and prepare public opinion for a development that took institutional form several years later. The newspaper contributed to the groundwork for the New Zionist Organization, whose founding congress was held in Vienna from 7 to 12 September 1935.

Contribution to Hebrew journalism and Zionist memory

Historian Mina Graur, a researcher of Revisionist journalism, has described Ha’am as continuing the radical style and direction associated with Do’ar Hayom. Ha’am frequently criticized the leaders of the Zionist Organization, the leaders of the Labor parties in Palestine, and the major Hebrew newspapers of the Yishuv. Its writers sometimes referred to newspapers by colors intended to symbolize their political character: Davar as red, Haaretz as gray, Do’ar Hayom as yellow, and the Forverts as yellow and red, while Ha’am identified itself with blue and white.

The newspaper’s significance cannot be measured by its circulation or by the short duration of its publication. Its pages preserve a vivid record of the ideological, political, and cultural conflicts that shaped the Jewish community in Palestine during the early 1930s. They show Hebrew journalism functioning simultaneously as a news medium, an organizational instrument, a literary forum, and a site where national identity and political strategy were debated.

Why Ha’am belongs in Moreshet

Ha’am merits inclusion in Moreshet because it documents, in immediate and unusually varied form, the debates that shaped Revisionist Zionism and the wider Jewish public in Mandatory Palestine. Its articles reveal how Hebrew newspapers helped movements formulate policy, reach readers in Palestine and the Diaspora, respond to British rule, and argue over the future institutions of the Zionist project.

The paper also connects major figures in Zionist history, Hebrew literature, and public journalism, from Jabotinsky, Abba Ahimeir, and Uri Zvi Greenberg to Hemda Ben-Yehuda, Ben-Zion Netanyahu, and David Tidhar. Preserving Ha’am’s story helps explain how political arguments first expressed in a short-lived newspaper influenced the organizational paths that followed. For Moreshet and Moreshet.com, the paper is an important record of the moment when the printed Hebrew word became an instrument of political leadership, collective memory, and national action.