Cooperative Palestine

The origin, growth and achievements of the Histadrut - the national committee for labor Palestine.

Eighty-seven men and women representing 4,433 Jewish workers throughout Palestine were gathered on December 4th, 1920 in the hall attached to the work-shop of the Technion in Haifa. They had come to effect the unification of the Jewish workers in Palestine.
The struggle of the workers for unity had been going on for well over a generation. Had they not all worked side by side in the same fields and on the same roads, drained the same swamps and dug for the same life-giiving waters? Had they not all known the same dread malaria and fought the same battles against Bedouin marauders? Had they not all known the same despair and the same defiant national purpose engendered by that despair? Yet they were unable to overcome the idolatry of words and slogans which they brought with them from their lands of exile, however little reality these retained in the new life they were creating.