Alexander Zaïd

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Monument in memory of Alexander Zaid near Bet She'arim national park, statue by David Polus

Alexander Zaid (1886 − July 10, 1938) was one of the founders of the Jewish defense organizations Bar Giora and Hashomer, and a prominent figure of the Second Aliyah.

1 Early life
2 Life in pre-state Israel
3 Commemoration
4 References

[edit] Early life

Zaid was born in 1886 in Zima, a town in Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia. His father had been deported from Vilna to Siberia due to revolutionary activity and his mother was a Subbotnik, whose parents had converted and were exiled as a result. In 1889 the mother was murdered by a bandit and the family moved to Irkutsk. In 1901 they returned to Vilna, where his father remarried. Two years later, the father died, too. The orphaned teenager met Michael Helpern, a First Aliyah pioneer sent to Vilna to promote immigration to Palestine. Zaid moved to Palestine in 1904 under the auspices of the Zionist Labour Movement. He worked at the winery in Rishon Letzion, where he met Israel Shochat, as a construction worker in Ben Shemen and a stonemason in Jerusalem.

[edit] Life in pre-state Israel

In 1907, he helped establish the first Jewish watchmen's organization, the clandestine "Bar-Giora". Two years later, in 1909, he was one of the founders of Hashomer, a Jewish defense organization, to safeguard the Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine. Zaid was a founder of Kfar Giladi and Tel Hai. In 1926, when Hashomer was replaced by the Haganah, Zaid moved to Sheikh Abrik in the Valley of Jezreel, where he worked as a watchman, overseeing the lands of the JNF. While digging the foundations for his family home, he uncovered ancient remains that led to the discovery of the necropolis of Beit She'arim. ^[1]

Zaid survived two attacks by Arab marauders, but on the night of July 10, 1938, he was murdered. ^[2]

[edit] Commemoration

On a hilltop overlooking the Jezreel Valley is a bronze statue of Alexander Zaid on horseback sculpted by David Polus^[3] The settlements, Beit Zaid and Givat Zaid were named after him. The poet Alexander Penn dedicated his poem, Adamah, Admati ("Land, My Land") to Alexander Zaid.