Hatzohar

Hatzohar הצה"ר
Founded	1925
Merged into	Herut
Newspaper	Hazit HaAm HaYarden HaMashkif
Ideology	Revisionist Zionism
Politics of Israel Political parties Elections

Hatzohar (Hebrew: הצה"ר, an acronym for HaTzionim HaRevizionistim (Hebrew: הציונים הרוויזיוניסטים), lit. The Revisionist Zionists), officially Brit HaTzionim HaRevizionistim (Hebrew: ברית הציונים הרוויזיוניסטים, lit. Union of Revisionist Zionists) was a Revisionist Zionist organisation and political party in Mandate Palestine and newly-independent Israel.

Background

Hatzohar was founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky in 1925, along with its youth wing, Betar. The name of Revisionist Zionism stems from the demand by some Zionists for a revision of Chaim Weizmann's policy of appeasement towards the British Government in Palestine. Organisation members were, among other things, instrumental in creating Żydowski Związek Wojskowy, one of two Jewish organisations that organised the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The party began publishing Hazit HaAm in 1931, but it was shut down by the British authorities after a few months. They went on to establish HaYarden, and in 1938 the daily HaMashkif. The party had briefly also been associated with Doar HaYom.

At the time of Israel's independence in 1948, Hatzohar was the largest right-wing organization in the country, and had three seats in the Provisional State Council (held by Herzl Rosenblum, Zvi Segal and Ben-Zion Sternberg). However, the founding of Herut by Menachem Begin in the same year dealt it a fatal blow. Although some purists alleged that Begin was out to steal Jabotinsky's mantle and refused to defect from the party, under the leadership of Aryeh Altman, Hatzohar won less than 1% of the vote in Israel's first elections and failed to cross the Knesset's electoral threshold. In contrast, Herut won 14 seats with 11.5% of the vote; Altman later joined Herut and was elected to the Knesset on its list in 1951, whilst Begin would carry Revisionist ideology of Likud to electoral victory in 1977.

The party was disbanded prior to the 1951 elections when it merged into Herut.