Manya Shochat

Manya Shochat was born in 1879 in Lasosna

Manya Wilbushewitch was born to a wealthy Jewish family on the Łosośna estate in the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire. She was the eighth of 10 children. Her father Zeev was an observant Jew, and her mother Sarah was educated in the spirit of the Haskalah.

The children studied in the home of Dr. Yosef Chazanovitz in Białystok, where they met Zionist ideas. She passed her matriculation exam at a gymnasium in Grodno. Letters from her brother Isaac, who went to Palestine and joined Bilu, influenced her.

She worked as a laborer in her brother Gedaliah's factory in Minsk and organized study groups for workers. She was arrested in 1899 and met Sergei Zubatov, head of the secret police in Moscow. In 1901 she founded the Jewish Independent Labor Party, which led strikes in Odessa and Minsk.

In 1903, under government pressure, she dissolved the party. After the Kishinev pogrom that year, she decided to focus on the fate of the Jews. She arrived in Palestine on January 2, 1904, joining her brother Nachum on a research expedition.

In Palestine she was among the heads of Bar Giora, Hashomer and the Labor Battalion, and of Kibbutz Kfar Giladi. She stayed largely due to the influence of Yehoshua and Olga Hankin. She died in 1961.