Gordonia youth movement

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The Gordonia Youth Movement, based on the personal example of Aaron David Gordon was established in 1925. The movement’s doctrines were based on his interpretations – i.e. the salvation of Eretz Yisrael and the Jewish People through manual labor and the revival of the Hebrew Language. In Gordonia the cadets learned Hebrew and the graduates organized themselves into training groups pending aliya to Eretz Yisrael (Yad Vashem 2005).

The movement promoted aliya to agricultural collectives-kibbutz in Palestine in the interwar period. These pioneering initiatives were crucial in the development of the kibbutz movement in Palestine and the state of Israel as a whole.

Being established after many of the other socialist Zionist movements, Gordonia, in its early years struggled existentially. Emerging from ideological crisis, Gordonia was seen as a reaction against the fatal errors of movements such as the Shomer whom they viewed as adopting ‘foreign ideals’ (e.g. Marxism) which threatened to divert attention from the important historical pioneering task. Gordonia saw itself as the pioneering youth movement of the Jewish masses – rejecting theoretical ideals of socialism and romanticism in favour of practical pioneering as embodied in A.D. Gordon. The principal distinction between Gordonia and the other movements was its decision not to engage in political activities (in alignment with the philosophies of their figurehead). (Mendelsohn, 1981, p298)

The United States branch of Gordonia was small and largely based in the Washington-Baltimore and Dallas areas, with only one summer camp, Moshava, near Annapolis, MD. The group merged with the labor Zionist youth movement Habonim in April, 1938.