Hamodia recalls Stalin-loving Mapamniks

The Pesach edition of the Hamodia will for many bring back unpleasant memories of the appalling Mapam party. Mapam was created by a marriage of the Hashomer Hatzair and the Poalei Zion groups. In a sad indictment of Israeli voters, despite Mapam being Stalin-devotees, they garnered enough votes in Israel's first election to get 19 of their schlepper comrades well-paid parliamentarian jobs. In fact they became the 2nd largest party in the first Knesset.

HAMODIA

How so many of our ‘am navon vechacham’, who had only recently suffered terribly in the hands of brutal murderers – Hitler and Stalin – could cast their votes for such an execrable rabble is truly beyond our comprehension.

The Mapam’s emotional and ‘heartfelt’ commiseration at the demise of one of history’s worst monsters shows that even before Goldstone we had plenty of disgraceful types in our midst. In addition to their love of Stalin they were also known to be extremist haters of Torah and Torah Jewry. Thankfully over the years they have been flushed down the toilet of history and as one personality was overheard stating that we have been zocheh to witness the fulfillment of “Yemach shemom vezichrom’.

PS: The current edition of Hamodia includes almost half a dozen supplements incorporating a wealth of interesting articles and features. There are heaps of fascinating items - enough to keep all members of the family occupied for hours on end. We highly recommend it as an Oneg Yom Tov treat for all.

And for those who are too young to remember, here's part of their Wikipedia entry which details some of their unlovely views.


Mapam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mapam (Hebrew: מפ"ם‎, an acronym for Mifleget HaPoalim HaMeuhedet (Hebrew: מפלגת הפועלים המאוחדת‎), lit. United Workers Party, Arabic: حزب العمال الموحد‎, abbreviated 'مبام') was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party.

History

Mapam was formed by a January 1948 merger of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party was originally Marxist-Zionist in its outlook and represented the left-wing Kibbutz Artzi movement. It also took over the Hashomer Hatzair-affiliated newspaper Al HaMishmar.

1950s Mapam May Day meeting.

 Slogan reads '1st of May for Peace and Brotherhood of the Peoples.

In the elections for the first Knesset, Mapam took 19 seats, making it the second largest party after Mapai. As the party did not allow Israeli Arabs to be members at the time, it had also set up an Arab list, the Popular Arab Bloc, to contest the elections (a tactic also used by Mapai, with whom the Democratic List of Nazareth were affiliated). However, the Arab list failed to cross the 1% electoral threshold.

The party's pro-Soviet views did not endear them to Ben-Gurion, and they were not included in the governing coalition. During the session they gained one seat when Eliezer Preminger joined after leaving Maki and then setting up his own party, the Hebrew Communists.

In the 1951 elections the party dropped to 15 seats and again were not included in the coalition. However, they did become the first Zionist party to have an Israeli Arab, Rostam Bastuni, representing them in the Knesset.

From Mapam's point of view, the most important event of the second Knesset were the Prague Trials of 1953, which severely shook the party's faith in the Soviet Union. The show trials in which mostly Jewish leaders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia were purged, falsely implicated Mapam's envoy in Prague, Mordechai Oren, as part of a Zionist conspiracy. After the Prague Trials and later, Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech at the 20th Party Congress in the Soviet Union, Mapam moved away from some of their more radical left wing positions, and towards social democracy.

This created a split in the party. Avraham Berman, Rostam Bastuni and Moshe Sneh left the party and set up the Left Faction, whilst Hannah Lamdan and David Livschitz created Faction independent of Ahdut HaAvoda. Although Bastuni later returned to the party, Berman and Sneh eventually joined Maki and Lamdan and Livschitz joined Mapai. Four other party members left to recreate Ahdut HaAvoda, though the Knesset speaker did not recognise the group as an independent party during the Knesset session. It also displeased the USSR. /SNIP