10 Facts About Ya'akov Zerubavel

Ya'akov Zerubavel was a Jewish Zionist activist, writer, publisher, and one of the leaders of the Poale Zion movement.

Ya'akov Zerubavel was born in Poltava in the Russian Empire.

Ya'akov Zerubavel spent 18 months in prison before moving to Lvov, where he worked on the editorial board of the Yiddish newspaper Der Yiddisher Arbeter.

In 1910 Ya'akov Zerubavel immigrated to Palestine, where he became one of the leaders of the Poale Zion movement along with David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.

Ya'akov Zerubavel was sentenced to prison by Ottoman authorities during World War I, but he managed to escape and fled to the United States in 1915.

Ya'akov Zerubavel returned to Russia following the October Revolution in 1917, becoming a member of the National Jewish Council of Ukraine.

Ya'akov Zerubavel returned to Poland in 1918, where he served as a leader of the Poale Zion and edited a Yiddish newspaper.

In 1935 Ya'akov Zerubavel was allowed by British Mandatory authorities to return to Palestine.

Ya'akov Zerubavel served on the executive committee of the Histadrut, whose labor archive he directed beginning in 1951.

Ya'akov Zerubavel was a strong proponent of the Yiddish language, sharing the view of many left-wing Zionists that Hebrew was the language of intellectuals, and therefore not suitable to the party's goal of reaching the primarily Yiddish-speaking masses abroad.