December 17 1917 – 2 Tevet 5678
Marxist Zionist Dov Ber Borochov died of pneumonia at the age of thirty six, just a few weeks after the October Revolution. Raised in Platova, in the Pale of Jewish settlement (now in Ukraine), Borochov was a child genius whose parents ensured he had a broad education as well a thorough grounding in traditional Jewish texts. A Zionist from an early age, he was a prolific author of socialist Zionist ideology. In Borochov’s eyes, the Jewish people were like an inverted pyramid, based on a tiny minority of manual laborers, which he believed should be turned on its head, broadening the means of production.
In his final years, however, his thinking changed and he softened his view of the need for class struggle in Palestine, adopting a more traditional nationalist angle in search of much needed unity – clearly the only way – in the prevailing difficult economic circumstances – to advance the Zionist cause.
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