Israel Shochat

Israel Shochat was born in 1886 in Lyskava

Israel Shochat was born in 1886 in Lyskava, in the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire, to a wealthy landowning family. After his mother died, the family moved to Grodno. There he joined Poale Zion and the local Jewish self-defense group.

He studied commerce in Warsaw and then agronomy in Germany for a few months. He left his studies to move to the Land of Israel.

In 1904 he arrived with his brother Eliezer and worked in farming in Petah Tikva and in the Rishon LeZion winery. He helped found Poale Zion in the country and wrote its Ramleh Program with David Ben-Gurion. In 1907 he and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi founded Bar-Giora, and in 1909 its members formed Hashomer and chose him as leader.

In 1912 he went to study law in Istanbul. The Turks later exiled him to Turkey, and he returned in 1919 and joined Ahdut HaAvoda. He co-founded the Labor Battalion in 1920 and the secret group HaKibbutz in 1921.

In 1926 he traveled to the Soviet Union without party approval, which led to the dissolution of HaKibbutz in 1927. From 1930 he worked in Merkaz HaPoel until 1934. He died in 1961.