1856 - 1922 AARON DAVID (A.D.) GORDON (Russia-Eretz Israel)
A Hebrew writer and philosopher of the "religion of labor", he was considered to be the ideological pillar of the kibbutz movement. Born in 1856 in Russia, he only came to Eretz Israel at the age of 48. Neither his age or health impeded his drive to work in agriculture. He helped found Kibbutz Degania in 1909. Gordon's philosophy included a call for a return to nature. He believed that the self-improvement of each individual rather than external changes (i.e. Marxism) were the means to change Jewish destiny.
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