Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, 99; Kibbutznik Co-Founded Israel’s Labor Party

Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, 99, a pioneer of the kibbutz movement in Israel and a co-founder of that country’s Labor Party, died May 19 at his home on Givat Haim farm commune in Israel.

Born in the Bukovina region of Romania in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ben-Aharon studied economics and political science in Berlin before immigrating to British mandate of Palestine in 1928.

He joined the Givat Haim commune in 1932 and became active in labor issues in Israel. He was secretary of the Tel Aviv Workers’ Council from 1932 to 1938 and was later secretary of Mapai, a forerunner of Israel’s Labor Party, which was headed by David Ben-Gurion.

While fighting in Greece during World War II as part of the Jewish Brigade for the British Army, he was captured by Axis troops.

He spent the next four years in a prisoner-of-war camp.

After the war, he returned to Israel and was elected to parliament seven times between 1949 and 1977.

He was out of office from 1965 to 1969 and retired after the Likud Party defeated Labor in the 1977 elections.

He also headed the Histadrut labor federation from 1969 to 1973, and during that time he allowed Arabs to join for the first time.

In a New York Times op-ed piece in 1973, he wrote that “an Arab minority has become part and parcel of the reality of this land.” He was later criticized for advocating an Israeli withdrawal from some West Bank territories.