32 Facts About Manya Shochat

Manya Shochat was a Russian-Jewish politician who was a leading figure in the Zionist movement.

Manya Shochat was influential in the establishment of kibbutzim in Palestine in the early 1900s, which laid the groundwork for the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Manya Shochat was a descent of Comte Vibois, an officer in Napoleon's army who converted to Judaism after marrying a Jewish woman.

Manya Shochat was expelled for slapping a professor who, in the course of a lecture, stated that the Jews were sucking the blood of the farmers in Ukraine.

Manya Shochat was persuaded that this would help achieve rights for Jews.

Manya Shochat proceeded to found the Jewish Independent Labor Party in 1901.

Manya Shochat dismembered the body and sent the remains to four different locations of the Russian Empire.

Manya Shochat accepted an invitation from her brother Nachum, who was the founder of the Shemen soap factory in Haifa, to accompany him on a research expedition to some of the wilder places of Palestine.

Manya Shochat fell in love with the beauty of the land and was especially touched by the plight of the Jewish settlement in the Hauran.

Manya Shochat decided to visit all of the Baron's colonies and see for herself why they were in financial straits.

Manya Shochat became acquainted with and was greatly impressed by Yehoshua and Olga Hankin.

In May 1908, Manya married Israel Shochat, who was 9 years younger than her.

Manya Shochat had 2 children with him: Gideon, 1912, and Anna, 1917.

Gideon Manya Shochat was a pilot in the British Royal Air Force during World War II and later became one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force, rising to the rank of colonel.

Manya Shochat was first looked after in Kinneret but later cared for by an Arab family.

Manya Shochat understood that the model of plantation settlement, favored by Baron Rothschild, where Jewish owners employed Arab workers and were subject to economic overseers, could never be the basis for Jewish national life.

Manya Shochat concluded that only collective agricultural settlement could produce Jewish workers and farmers who would be the basis for building a Jewish homeland.

Manya Shochat left for Paris, where one of her brothers was editor of an agricultural journal, to research the feasibility of her ideas and then to convince the Baron to back them.

Manya Shochat laid aside the Hauran project and put her efforts towards fundraising instead.

Manya Shochat convinced Rothschild to donate 50 000 gold francs to that end.

Manya Shochat returned to Palestine in 1906 to further pursue her Hauran plan.

Manya Shochat realized that the only way to convince people that it could work was by putting it into practice, so she returned to Palestine in 1907.

Manya Shochat shared her idea with members of "Poalei Tzion" and "Hapoel Hatzair".

Manya Shochat was appointed manager responsible for establishing a training farm at Sejara.

Three years later they moved to Constantinople where Manya Shochat taught German whilst Israel studied for an Ottoman law degree.

Manya Shochat hid them among baskets of vegetables and eggs.

Manya Shochat ran up to the patrol, begging them to help rescue the car from the mud.

Israel Manya Shochat oversaw the procurement and shipment of the weapons to Palestine.

Manya Shochat subsequently broke off relations with Ben Gurion over his failure to come to her defence when it was known that the Haganah in Jerusalem had ordered the killing.

In 1930, Manya Shochat was among the founders of the League for Arab-Jewish Friendship.

Mania Manya Shochat's life is the subject of a novel by Israeli author Dvora Omer.

Manya Shochat is a main character in Amos Gitai's 2003 film, Berlin-Jerusalem.