Isaac Tabenkin

Yitzhak Tabenkin (; 8 January 1888 – 6 June 1971) was a Zionist activist and Israeli politician. He was a co-founder of the Kibbutz Movement and several political parties, including Movement for a Greater Israel. Tabenskin cited Hayim Nahman Bialik, Peter Kropotkin, Mikhail Bakunin, and Karl Marx as influences. thumb Poalei Zion members in Warsaw, Congress Poland, 1905.Standing (L-R): Yitzhak Tabenkin, Eliezer Salzkin. Seated: Elkana Horowitz, Yosef Zaltzman, Eva Tabenkin, Max Tabenkin (who never emigrated to Israel).

Tabenkin was among the founders of Poale Zion in Poland. In 1912, he made aliyah to Ottoman Palestine, working as an agricultural laborer in Merhavia and Kfar Uria. During World War I, he worked on the Kinneret Farm. After the war, he was a delegate to each Zionist Congress.

Tabenkin joined the defense organization HaShomer and was active in agricultural laborers' organizations in what would later be called the West Bank. In 1921, he became a member of Gdud HaAvoda, and was one of the founders of the first kibbutz proper (as opposed to smaller-scale kvutza), Ein Harod, where he was considered a spiritual leader. He expressed a vision of the entire Jewish people living in communes as part of a "worldwide alliance of communist peoples". He referred to the Great Revolt as an event that perpetuated the Jewish national existence.

Political career

Tabenkin was one of the founders of Ahdut HaAvoda. In 1930, he helped establish Mapai and was one of its leaders alongside David Ben-Gurion and Berl Katznelson. He opposed the Peel Commission’s recommendations and resisted efforts by Ben-Gurion to reach a compromise with the Revisionist Zionists.

During the 1960s, Tabenkin stated that the 1949 Armistice Agreements would not last. In June 1966, he stated "Anywhere war will allow, we shall go to restore the country's integrity".

After the Six-Day War of 1967, he opposed any concession of territories captured during the conflict. He considered the addition of over a million Arabs to Israel's population a problem that could be solved by a massive aliyah. Tabenkin supported the Movement for Greater Israel and believed Israel’s military victories would awaken the Jewish diaspora.

Personal life and legacy Tabenkin's son, Joseph Tabenkin, became the Fourth Battalion commander of the Palmach's Harel Brigade.

Tabenkin lived at Ein Harod until his death in 1971.

Published works The Jewish State and the Way to Achieve It (1944) Kibbutz Society (1954) There is No Where to Pullback To (1968) Lessons of the Six Day War (1970) Issues (Four Volumes of Articles) (1967)