Hechaluz. Shaping a Zionist-pioneering movement in post-WWII Italy (1945-1948).

This work investigates the establishment of the first Zionist pioneering movement of Italy, Hechaluz. At the end of WWII in Italy, Jewish members of the Allied armies set up educational and training facilities for pioneering Zionism (halutzism). There had never been a halutzist movement in Italy, so the aim was to create one to train young Jews in agricultural work. In this way, once trained, young Italian Jews could be sent to Palestine to participate in the Zionist colonisation that served as a basis for the establishment of a Jewish state. Education took place in the cities in Jewish community centres. The training was carried out inside educational farms called hachsharoth, where the young people lived within a collectivist social structure emulating the reality of the kibbutzim, Zionist agricultural settlements in Palestine. Starting with a general introduction on pioneering Zionism and its historical development, this research follows the growth of Hechaluz from its local forms in Rome (1944) and Milan (1945), their merger into a nationwide organisation in 1945, and concludes with the Fifth national Congress of September 1948, held a few months after the birth of the State of Israel. The study concentrates on: the events surrounding the birth of the groups in Rome and Milan, the internal political dynamics that shaped the character of Hechaluz, the training in peasant and collectivist life in the hachsharoth, and the image of chalutzism and the Palestinian kibbutzist reality given in the Hechaluz’s periodicals. The last chapter is dedicated to the discussion of the analytical frame with which Hechaluz’s political narrative can be read, understood and placed in a broader context: settler colonialism. Since the periodicals ‘Dapei Hechaluz’ (Rome, 1944-1946), ‘Dape’ Hechaluz’ (Milan, 1945-1946) and ‘Hechaluz’ (1946-1956) were the medium used to propagate the ideas and activities of Hechaluz in Italy, they constitute the main sources of this research.