Berl Katznelson

Berl Katznelson (Hebrew: ברל כצנלסון‎‎, 25 January 1887 – 12 August 1944) was one of the intellectual founders of Labor Zionism, instrumental to the establishment of the modern state of Israel, and the editor of Davar, the first daily newspaper of the workers' movement.

Katznelson was born in Babruysk, Belarussia, the son of a member of Hovevei Zion. He dreamed of settling in the Jewish homeland from an early age. In Russia, he was a librarian in a Hebrew-Yiddish library and taught Hebrew literature and Jewish history. He made aliyah to Ottoman Palestine in 1909, where he worked in agriculture and took an active role in organizing workers' federations based on the idea of "common work, life and aspirations."

Together with his cousin, Yitzhak Tabenkin, Katznelson was one of the founding fathers of the Israeli workers union, the Histadrut. In this capacity, together with Meir Rothberg of the Kinneret Farm, Katznelson founded in 1916 the consumer co-operative known as Hamashbir with the goal of supplying the Jewish communities of Palestine with food at affordable prices during the terrible shortage years of the First World War. He helped to establish the Clalit Health Services sick fund, a major fixture in Israel's network of socialized medicine. In 1925, together with Moshe Beilinson, Katznelson established the Davar daily newspaper, and became its first editor, a position he held until his death, as well as becoming the founder and first editor-in-chief of the Am Oved publishing house.

...
Wikipedia