Hashomer

Hashomer (השומר, "The Watchman") was a Jewish defense organization in Palestine founded in April 1909. It was an outgrowth of the Bar-Giora group and was disbanded after the founding of the Haganah in 1920. Hashomer was responsible for guarding Jewish settlements in the Yishuv, freeing Jewish communities from dependence upon foreign consulates and Arab watchmen for their security. It was headed by a committee of three—Israel Shochat, Israel Giladi, and Mendel Portugali. Hashomer was originated by Socialist Zionists, mostly members of Poale Zion, including Israel Shochat, Manya Shochat, Yehezkel Henkin, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Ben-Zvi's wife Rachel Yanait, several of whom had earlier formed a small secret guard society called Bar-Giora, which guarded the Sejera commune (now Ilaniya) and Mes'ha (now Kfar Tavor). Bar-Giora was founded on September 29, 1907 by Israel Shochat, Alexander Zaïd, Yehezkel Henkin in the apartment of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi which was in Jaffa. Less than two years later, on April 12, 1909 the Bar-Giora leadership decided at a meeting in Kfar Tavor to disband their organization and create a larger one, Hashomer. While earlier settlers had undertaken to defend their lands and communities, Hashomer was the first attempt to provide an organized defence for all the Jewish communities in Palestine. By 1910 Yehezkel Henkin was the first of the Shomer people to ride horseback so he became a riding guard. He taught other “Watchmen” how to ride. This prompted the committee to buy him a horse that he named "Tzipora". In the autumn of 1911 Manya Shochat wrote, on behalf of Hashomer, to Menachem Ussishkin in Odessa asking for money. In her letter she stated that in 1910 Hashomer had “35 watchmen, 23 infantry and 12 cavalry”, and were guarding six colonies in Galilee as well as Hadera. A serious obstacle was the lack of funds with which to buy arms. On Yehoshua Hankin's advice, they asked Eliahu Krause, the manager at Sejera, to lend them the money. The first guns were bought, several of the members refusing to part from them even for a moment.